HE  HEALINO  of  NaTH 

EDWARD  GARFEISTEE 


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THE   HEALING 
OF    NATIONS 


THE   HEALING  OF 

NATIONS     AND     THE 

HIDDEN    SOURCES    OF    THEIR 
STRIFE  •  By  EDWARD  jCARPENTER 

i    i 


"  The  Tree  of  Life  .  .  .  whose  leaves 
are  for   the  Healing  of  the  Nations  " 


NEW    YORK 
CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS 

597-599    FIFTH    AVENUE 
1915 


{All  rights  reserved) 


^ 


CONTENTS 


I.  INTRODUCTORY 

II.  WAR-MADNESS    .... 

III.  THE   ROOTS    OF   THE   GREAT    WAR 

IV.  THE   CASE   AGAINST    GERMANY   . 
V.  THE   CASE   FOR    GERMANY 

VI.  THE   HEALING    OF    NATIONS 

VII.  PATRIOTISM    AND    INTERNATIONALISM 

VIII.  THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF   WAR    AND    RECRUITING 

IX.  CONSCRIPTION 

X.  HOW   SHALL   THE    PLAGUE   BE    STAYED? 

XI.  COMMERCIAL     PROSPERITY    THE     PROSPERITY   OF 
A   CLASS  .... 

XII.  COLONIES    AND    SEAPORTS  . 

XIII.  WAR   AND    THE   SEX   IMPULSE     . 

S 


PA6B 

•       9 

24 

26 

•  56 

•    71 

.  lOI 

.  130 

.  138 

•  153 

.  163 

F 

.  167 

.  174 

.  178 

6  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

XIV.  THE   OVER-POPULATION    SCARE  .  .  .  .    185 

XV.  THE    FRIENDLY    AND   THE    FIGHTING    INSTINCTS    1 94 

XVI.  NEVER    AGAIN  ! 202 

XVII.  THE   TREE   OF   LIFE 2o8 

APPENDIX— 

A  New  and  Better  Peace 231 

The  Change  from  the  Old  Germany  to  the  New  231 
Classes  in  Germany  for  and  against  the  War         .  233 

Political  Ignorance 234 

Purpose  of  the  War :  Max  Harden       .         .  235 

England's    Perfidy :     Professors     Haeckel    and 
Eucken  .......  236 

Manifesto  of  Professor  Eucken    ....  238 

Nietzsche  on  Disarmament  ....  239 

The  Effect  of  Disarmament  ....  239 

The  Principle  of  Nationality  :  Winston  Churchill  241 
Conscription        .......  241 

Neutralization  of  the  Sea :  H.  G.  Wells  .  .  242 
The  War  and  Democracy :  Arnold  Bennett  .  243 

The  Future  Settlement :  G.  Lowes  Dickinson  .  244 
Brutality  of  Warfare :  H.  M.  Tomlinson  .  .  246 
Patriotism  :  Romain  Rolland  247 


CONTENTS  7 

PAGE 

No  Patriotism  in  Business !  .        .        .         .248 

Manifesto,  Independent  Labour  Party  .         .  248 

Responsibility  of  the  whole  Capitalist  Class  .  249 

Text  of  Karl  Liebknecht's  Protest  in  Reichstag  251 
The  Russian  Danger  .  .  ^  .  .  -253 
Letter  on  Russia  by  P.  Kropotkin  .  .  -254 
On  the  Future  of  Europe,  by  the  same  .  -256 
Servia :  R.  W.  Seton-Watson  .  .  .  -257 
The  Battlefield :  Walt  Whitman  .         .         .257 

Chinese  Christians  on  the  War  :  Dr.  A.  Salter  .  259 
Essential  FriendUness  of  Peoples         .         .         .260 

Reconciliation  in  Death 261 

Christmas  at  the  Front,  1914       ....  262 
Letter  from  the  Trenches  by  Baron  Marschall 
von  Bieberstein 266 


INTRODUCTORY] 

The  following  Studies  and  Notes,  made 
during  the  earlier  period  of  the  present  war 
and  now  collected  together  for  publication, 
do  not— as  will  be  evident  to  the  reader- 
pretend  to  any  sort  of  completeness  in  their 
embrace  of  the  subject,  or  finality  in  its 
presentation.  Rather  they  are  scattered 
thoughts  suggested  by  the  large  and  tangled 
drama  which  we  are  witnessing  ;  and  I  am 
sufficiently  conscious  that  their  expression 
involves  contradictions  as  well  as  repeti- 
tions . 

The  truth  is  that  affairs  of  this  kind— like 
all  the  great  issues  of  human  life.  Love, 
Politics,  Religion,  and  so  forth,  do  not,  at 
their  best,  admit  of  final  dispatch  in  definite 
views  and  phrases.  They  are  too  vast  and 
complex  for  that.   It  is,  indeed,  quite  probable 


10  THE   HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

that  such  things  cannot  be  adequately  repre- 
sented or  put  before  the  human  mind  without 
logical  inconsistencies  and  contradictions. 
But  (perhaps  for  that  very  reason)  they  are 
the  subjects  of  the  most  violent  and  dogmatic 
differences  of  opinion.  Nothing  people 
quarrel  about  more  bitterly  than  Politics— 
unless  it  be  Religion  :  both  being  subjects 
of  which  all  that  one  can  really  say  for 
certain  is— that  nobody  understands  them. 

When,  as  in  the  present  war,  a  dozen 
or  more  nations  enter  into  conflict  and  hurl 
at  each  other  accusations  of  the  angriest  sort 
(often  quite  genuinely  made  and  yet  abso- 
lutely irreconcilable  one  with  another),  and 
when  on  the  top  of  that  scores  and  hundreds 
of  writers  profess  to  explain  the  resulting 
situation  in  a  few  brief  phrases  (but  unfor- 
tunately their  explanations  are  all  different), 
and  calmly  affix  the  blame  on  "  Russia  "  or 
"  Germany  "  or  "  France  "  or  "  England  "— 
just  as  if  these  names  represented  certain 
responsible  individuals,  supposed  for  the 
purposes  of  the  argument  to  be  of  very  wily 
and  far-scheming  disposition— whereas  it  is 
perfectly  well  known  that  they  really  repre- 
sent  most    complex    whirlpools    of    political 


INTRODUCTORY  ii 

forces,  in  which  the  merest  accidents  (as 
whether  two  members  of  a  Cabinet  have 
quarrelled,  or  an  Ambassador's  dinner  has 
disagreed  with  him)  may  result  in  a  long 
and  fatal  train  of  consequences— it  becomes 
obvious  that  all  so-called  "  explanations " 
(though  it  may  be  right  that  they  should 
be  attempted)  fall  infinitely  short  of  the 
reality. I 

Feeling  thus  the  impossibility  of  dealing 
at  all  adequately  with  the  present  situation^ 
I  have  preferred  to  take  here  and  there  just 
an  aspect  of  it  for  consideration,  with  a  view 
especially  to  the  differences  between  Ger- 
many and  England.  I  have  thought  that 
instead  of  spending  time  over  recriminations 

^  Some  people  take  great  pleasure  in  analysing  White 
Books  and  Grey  Books  and  Orange  Books  and  Yellow 
Books  without  end,  and  proving  this  or  that  from  them — as 
of  course  out  of  such  a  mass  of  material  they  can  easily  do, 
according  to  their  fancy.  But  when  one  remembers  that 
almost  all  the  documents  in  these  books  have  been  written 
with  a  view  to  their  later  publication;  and  when  one 
remembers  also  that,  however  incompetent  diplomatists 
as  a  class  may  be,  no  one  supposes  them  to  be  such 
fools  as  to  entrust  their  most  important  ententes  and 
understandings  with  each  other  to  printed  records — why, 
one  comes  to  the  conclusion  that  the  analysis  of  all  these 
State  papers  is  not  a  very  profitable  occupation. 


12  THE   HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

one  might  be  on  safer  ground  by  trying  to 
get  at  the  root-causes  of  this  war  (and  other 
wars),  thus  making  one's  conclusions  to 
some  degree  independent  of  a  multitude  of 
details  and  accidents,  most  of  which  must 
for  ever  remain  unknown  to  us. 

There  are  in  general  four  rather  well- 
marked  species  of  wars — Religious  wars, 
Race  wars,  wars  of  Ambition  and  Conquest, 
and  wars  of  Acquisition  and  Profit — though 
in  any  particular  case  the  four  species  may 
be  more  or  less  mingled.  The  religious  and 
the  race  motives  often  go  together  ;  but  in 
modem  times  on  the  whole  (and  happily) 
the  religious  motive  is  not  so  very  dominant. 
Wars  of  race,  of  ambition,  and  of  acquisition 
are,  however,  still  common  enough.  Yet  it 
is  noticeable,  as  I  frequently  have  occasion 
to  remark  in  the  following  papers,  that  it 
only  very  rarely  happens  that  any  of  these 
wars  are  started  or  set  in  motion  by 
the  mass-peoples  themselves.  The  mass- 
peoples,  at  any  rate  of  the  more  modern 
nations,  are  quiescent,  peaceable,  and 
disinclined  for  strife.  Why,  then,  do  wars 
occur  ?    It  is  because  the  urge  to  war  comes, 


INTRODUCTORY  13 

not  from  the  masses  of  a  nation  but  from 
certain  classes  within  it.  In  every  nation, 
since  the  dawn  of  history,  there  have  been 
found,  beside  the  toiling  masses,  three  great 
main  cliques  or  classes,  the  Religious,  the 
Military,  and  the  Commercial.  It  was  so 
in  far-back  ancient  India;  it  is  so  now. 
Each  of  these  classes  endeavours  in  its  turn 
—as  one  might  expect— to  become  the  ruling 
class  and  to  run  the  government  of  the 
nation.  The  governments  of  the  nations 
thus  become  class -governments.  And  it 
is  one  or  another  of  these  classes  that 
for  reasons  of  its  own,  alone  or  in  com- 
bination with  another  class,  foments  war  and 
sets  it  going. 

In  saying  this  I  do  not  by  any  means 
wish  to  say  anything  against  the  mere 
existence  of  Class,  in  itself.  In  a  sense  that 
is  a  perfectly  natural  thing.  There  are 
different  divisions  of  human  activity,  and  it 
is  quite  natural  that  those  individuals  whose 
temperament  calls  them  to  a  certain  activity 
— literary  or  religious  or  mercantile  or 
mihtary  or  what  not — should  range  them- 
selves together  in  a  caste  or  class ;  just 
as  the  different  functions  of  the  human  body 


14  THE    HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

range  themselves  in  definite  organs.  And 
such  grouping  in  classes  may  be  perfectly 
healthy  provided  the  class  so  created  subor- 
dinates itself  to  the  welfare  of  the  Nation. 
But  if  the  class  does  not  subordinate  itself 
to  the  general  welfare,  if  it  pursues  its 
own  ends,  usurps  governmental  power,  and 
dominates  the  nation  for  its  own  uses 
—if  it  becomes  parasitical,  in  fact— then 
it  and  the  nation  inevitably  become  diseased  ; 
as  inevitably  as  the  human  body  becomes 
diseased  when  its  organs,  instead  of  supply- 
ing the  body's  needs,  become  the  tyrants 
and  parasites  of  the  whole  system. 

It  is  this  Class-disease  which  in  the  main 
drags  the  nations  into  the  horrors  and  follies 
of  war.  And  the  horrors  and  follies  of  war 
are  the  working  out  and  expulsion  on  the 
surface  of  evils  which  have  long  been 
festering  within.  How  many  times  in  the 
history  of  "  civilization  "  has  a  bigoted 
religious  clique,  or  a  swollen-headed  mili- 
tary clique,  or  a  greedy  commercial  gang — 
caring  not  one  jot  for  the  welfare  of  the 
people  committed  to  its  charge — dragged 
them  into  a  senseless  and  ruinous  war 
for    the    satisfaction    of    its    own    supposed 


INTRODUCTORY  15 

interests  !  It  is  here  and  in  this  direc- 
tion (which  searches  deeper  than  the  mere 
weighing  and  balancing  of  Foreign  poUcies 
and  Diplomacies)  that  we  must  look  for  the 
"  explanation  "  of  the  wars  of  to-day. 

And  even  race  wars— which  at  first  sight 
seem  to  have  little  to  do  with  the  Class 
trouble— illustrate  the  truth  of  my  conten- 
tion. For  they  almost  always  arise  from' 
the  hatred  generated  in  a  nation  by  an 
alien  class  establishing  itself  in  the  midst 
of  that  nation— establishing  itself,  maybe, 
as  a  governmental  or  dominant  class 
(generally  a  military  or  landlord  clique)  or 
maybe  as  a  parasitical  or  competing  class 
(as  in  the  case  of  the  Jews  in  Europe  and 
the  Japanese  in  America  and  so  forth). 
They  arise,  like  all  other  wars,  from  the 
existence  of  a  class  within  the  nation  which 
is  not  really  in  accord  with  the  people  of 
that  nation,  but  is  pursuing  its  own  interests 
apart  from  theirs.  In  the  second  of  the 
following  papers,  "  The  Roots  of  the  Great 
War,"  I  have  drawn  attention  to  the  influence 
of  the  military  and  commercial  classes, 
especially  in  Germany,  and  the  way  in  which 
their    policy,    coming    into    conflict    with    a 


i6  THE   HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

similar  policy  in  the  other  Western  nations, 
has  inevitably  led  to  the  present  embroil- 
ment. In  Eastern  Europe  similar  causes  are 
at  work,  but  there  the  race  elements — and 
even  the  religious — -constitute  a  more  impor- 
tant factor  in  the  problem. 

By  a  curious  fatality  Germany  has  become 
the  centre  of  this  great  war  and  world-move- 
ment, which  is  undoubtedly  destined — as  the 
Germans  themselves  think,  though  in  a 
way  quite  other  than  they  think — to  be 
of  vast  importance,  and  the  beginning  of 
a  new  era  in  human  evolution.  And  the 
more  one  considers  Germany's  part  in  the 
affair,  the  more  one  sees,  I  think,  that  from 
the  combined  influence  of  her  historical 
antecedents  and  her  national  psychology 
this  fatality  was  to  be  expected.  In 
roughly  putting  together  these  antece- 
dent elements  and  influences,  I  have 
entitled  the  chapter  "  The  Case  for  Ger- 
many," because  on  the  principle  of  tout 
comprendre  the  fact  of  the  evolution  being 
inevitable  constitutes  her  justification.  The 
nations  cannot  fairly  complain  of  her  having 
moved  along  a  line  which  for  a  century  or 
more  has  been  slowly  and  irresistibly  prepared 


INTRODUCtORY  17 

for  her.  On  the  other  hand^  the  nations  do 
complain  of  the  manner  and  the  methods 
with  which  at  the  last  she  has  precipitated 
and  conducted  the  war — as  indeed  they  have 
shown  by  so  widely  combining  against  her. 
However  right,  from  the  point  of  view  of 
destiny  and  necessity,  Germany  may  be,  she 
has  apparently  from  the  point  of  view  of 
the  moment  put  herself  in  the  wrong.  And 
the  chapter  dealing  with  this  phase  of  the 
question  I  have  called  "  The  Case  against 
Germany." 

Whatever  further  complications  and  post- 
ponements may  arise,  there  will  certainly 
come  a  time  of  recovery  and  reconstruction 
on  a  wide  and  extended  scale  over  Europe 
and  a  large  part  of  the  world.  To  even 
outline  this  period  would  be  impossible  at 
present ;  but  in  the  sixth  chapter  and  the 
last,  as  well  as  in  the  intermediate  pieces, 
I  have  given  some  suggestions  towards  this 
future  Healing  of  the  Nations. 

The  Evil — huge  and  monstrous  as  it  is 
— is  not  senseless,  one  may  feel  sure.  Even 
now  here  in  England  one  perceives  an  extra- 
ordinary pulling  together  and  bracing  up  of 


i8  THE    HEALING  OF   NATIONS 

the  people,  a  development  of  solidarity  and 
mutual  helpfulness,  a  greater  seriousness, 
and  a  disregarding  of  artificialities,  which 
are  all  to  the  good.  These  things  are  gains, 
even  though  the  way  of  their  manifestation 
be  through  much  of  enmity  and  ignorance. 
And  one  may  fairly  suppose  that  similar 
results  are  traceable  in  the  other  nations 
concerned.  Wounds  and  death  may  seem 
senseless  and  needless,  but  those  who  suffer 
them  do  not  suffer  in  vain.  All  these  shat- 
tering experiences,  whether  in  a  nation's 
career  or  in  the  career  of  an  individual,  cause 
one — they  force  one — to  look  into  the  bases 
of  life  and  to  get  nearer  its  realities.  If, 
in  this  case,  the  experiences  of  the  war,  and 
the  fire  which  the  nations  are  passing 
through,  serve  to  destroy  and  burn  up  much 
of  falsity  in  their  respective  habits  and 
institutions,  we  shall  have  to  admit  that  the 
attendant  disasters  have  not  been  all  loss — 
even  though  at  the  same  time  we  admit  that 
if  we  had  had  a  grain  of  sense  we  might 
have  mended  our  falsities  in  far  more 
economical  and  sensible  fashion. 

If   in   the   following   pages — chiefly   con- 
cerned   as    they    are    with    Germany    and 


^    INTRODUCTORY  19 

England — I  have  seemed  to  find  fault  with 
either  party  or  to  affix  blame  on  one  or  the 
other,  it  is  not  necessary  to  suppose  that 
one  harbours  ill-feeling  towards  either,  or 
that  one  fails  to  recognize  the  splendid 
devotion  of  both  the  combatants.  Two 
nations  so  closely  related  as  the  Germans 
and  the  English  cannot  really  be  so 
hopelessly  different  in  temperament  and 
character ;  and  a  great  deal  of  the  sup- 
posed difference  is  obviously  artificial  and 
class-made  for  the  occasion.  Still,  there  are 
differences  ;  and  as  we  both  think  we  are 
right,  and  as  we  are  unable  to  argue  the 
matter  out  in  a  rational  way,  there  seems  to 
be  nothing  for  it  but  to  fight. 

•War  has  often  been  spoken  of  as  a  great 
Game ;  and  Mr.  Jerome  K.  Jerome  has 
lately  written  eloquently  on  that  subject.  It 
is  a  game  in  which  the  two  parties  agree, 
so  to  speak,  to  differ.  They  take  sides,  and 
in  default  of  any  more  rational  method,  resort 
to  the  arbitrament  of  force.  The  stakes  are 
high,  and  if  on  the  one  hand  the  game 
calls  forth  an  immense  amount  of  resource, 
skill,  alertness,  self-control,  endurance, 
courage,   and  even   tenderness,   helpfulness, 


20  THE   HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

and  fidelity  ;    on  the  other  hand,  it  is  Hable 
to  let  loose  pretty  bad  passions  of  vindictive- 
ness  and  cruelty,  as  well  as  to  lead  to  an 
awful  accumulation  of  mental  and  physical 
suffering  and  of  actual  material  loss.     To 
call  war  "  The  Great  Game  "  may  have  been 
all  very  well  in  the  more  rudimentary  wars 
of  the  past ;   but  to-day,  when  every  horrible 
invention    of    science    is    conjured    up    and 
utilized  for  the  express  purpose  of  blowing 
human  bodies  to   bits  and  strewing   battle- 
fields with  human  remains,  and  the  human 
spirit  itself  can  hardly  hold  up  against  such 
a  process  of  mechanical  slaughter,  the  term 
has  ceased  to  be  applicable.    The  affections 
and    the    conscience    of    mankind    are    too 
violently  outraged  by  the  spectacle  ;    and  a 
great  mass  of  feeling  is  forming  which  one 
may  fairly  hope  will  ere  long  make  this  form 
of  strife  impossible  among  the  more  modern 
peoples. 

Still,  even  now,  as  Mr.  Jerome  himself 
contends,  the  term  is  partly  justified  by  a 
certain  fine  feeling  of  which  it  is  descriptive 
and  which  is  indeed  very  noticeable  in  all 
ranks.  Whether  in  the  Army  or  Navy, 
among    bluejackets    or    private    soldiers    or 


INTRODUCTORY  21 

officers,  the  feeling  is  certainly  very  much 
that  of  a  big  game — with  its  own  rules  of 
honour  and  decency  which  must  be  adhered 
to,  and  carried  on  with  extraordinary 
fortitude,  patience,  and  good-humour. 
iWhether  it  arises  from  the  mechanical  nature 
of  the  slaughter,  or  from  any  other  cause, 
the  fact  remains  that  among  our  fighting 
people  to-day— at  any  rate  in  the  West 
—there  is  very  little  feeling  of  hatred 
towards  the  "  enemy."  It  is  difficult,  indeed, 
to  hate  a  foe  whom  you  do  not  even  see. 
Chivalry  is  not  dead,  and  at  the  least  cessa- 
tion of  the  stress  of  conflict  the  tendency  to 
honour  opponents,  to  fraternize  with  them, 
to  succour  the  wounded,  and  so  forth,  asserts 
itself  again.  And  chivalry  demands  that 
what  feelings  of  this  kind  we  credit  to  our- 
selves we  should  also  credit  to  the  other 
parties  in  the  game.  We  do  cordially  credit 
them  to  our  French  and  Belgian  allies,  and 
if  we  do  not  credit  them  quite  so  cordially 
to  the  Germans,  that  is  partly  at  least  because 
every  lapse  from  chivalrous  conduct  on 
the  part  of  our  opponents  is  immediately 
fastened  upon  and  made  the  most  of  by 
our  Press.     Chivalry  is  by  no  means  dead 


22  THE    HEALING    OF   NATIONS 

in  the  Teutonic  breast,  though  the  sentiment 
has  certainly  been  obscured  by  some  modern 
German  teachings. 

While  these  present  war-producing  con- 
ditions last,  we  have  to  face  them  candidly 
and  with  as  much  good  sense  as  we  can 
command  (which  is  for  the  most  part  only 
little  1).  We  have  to  face  them  and  make 
the  best  of  them — though  by  no  means  to 
encourage  them.  Perhaps  after  all  even  a 
war  like  the  present  one — monstrous  as  it  is 
— does  not  denote  so  great  a  deviation  of 
the  old  Earth  from  its  appointed  orbit  as 
we  are  at  first  inclined  to  think.  Under 
normal  conditions  the  deaths  on  our  planet 
(and  many  of  them  exceedingly  lingering 
and  painful)  continue  at  the  rate  of  rather 
more  than  one  every  second — say  90,000 
a  day.  The  worst  battles  cannot  touch  such 
a  wholesale  slaughter  as  this.  Life  at  its 
normal  best  is  full  of  agonizings  and 
endless  toil  and  sufferings ;  what  matters, 
what  it  is  really  there  for,  is  that  we 
should  learn  to  conduct  it  with  Dignity, 
Courage,  Goodwill — to  transmute  its  dross 
into  gold.  If  war  has  to  continue  yet 
for     a     time,      there     is     still     plenty     of 


INTRODUCTORY  23 

evidence  to  show  that  we  can  wrest 
— even  from  its  horrors  and  insanities 
— some  things  that  are  "  worth  while,"  and 
among  others  the  priceless  jewel  of  human 
love  and  helpfulness. 


II 

WAR-MADNESS 

September^  \^\\. 

How  mad,  how  hopelessly  mad,  it  all  seems  1 
With  fifteen  to  twenty  million  soldiers  already 
mobilized,  and  more  than  half  that  number 
in  the  fighting  lines  ;  with  engines  of  ap- 
palling destruction  by  land  and  sea,  and 
over  the  land  and  under  the  sea ;  with 
Northern  France,  Belgium,  and  parts  of 
Germany,  Poland,  Russia,  Servia,  and 
Austria  drenched  in  blood ;  the  nations  ex- 
hausting their  human  and  material  resources 
in  savage  conflict— this  war,  marking  the 
climax,  and  (let  us  hope)  the  finale  of  our 
commercial  civilization,  is  the  most  monstrous 
the  old  Earth  has  ever  seen.  And  yet,  as 
in   a   hundred   earlier   and    lesser   wars,    we 

hardly  know  the  why  and  wherefore  of  it. 

24 


WAR-MADNESS  25 

It  is  like  the  sorriest  squabbles  of  children 
and  schoolboys— utterly  senseless  and  un- 
reasoning. But  broken  bodies  and  limbs  and 
broken  hearts  and  an  endless  river  of  blood 
and  suffering  are  the  outcome. 


Ill 

THE    ROOTS   OF   THE    GREAT   WAR' 

October^  19 14- 

In  the  present  chapter  I  wish  especially  to 
dwell  on  ( i )  the  danger  to  society,  men- 
tioned in  the  Introduction,  of  class-ascen- 
dancy and  class -rule  ;  and  (2)  the  hope  for 
the  future  in  the  international  solidarity  of 
the  workers. 

Through  all  the  mist  of  lies  and  slander 
created  on  such  an  occasion—by  which  each 
nation  after  a  time  succeeds  in  proving  that 
its  own  cause  is  holy  while  that  of  its 
opponent  is  wicked  and  devilish  ;  through 
the  appeals  to  God  and  Justice,  common 
to  both  sides  ;  through  the  shufflings  and 
windings  of  diplomats,  and  the  calculated 
attitudes   of  politicians,   adopted   for   public 

'  Reprinted  by  kind  permission  from  the  English  Review 

for  December,  1914. 

26 


THE   ROOTS   OF  THE   GREAT  WAR     27 

approval ;  through  the  very  real  rage  and 
curses  of  soldiers,  the  desperate  tears  and 
agony  of  women,  the  murder  of  babes, 
and  the  smoke  of  burning  towns  and 
villages  :  it  is  difficult,  indeed,  to  arrive  at 
clear  and  just  conclusions. 

When  the  war  first  broke  out  no  one  could 
give  an  adequate  reason  for  it.  It  all  seemed 
absurd,  monstrous,  impossible.  Then  arose 
a  Babel  of  explanations.  It  was  that  Ger- 
many desired  to  crush  France  finally ;  it 
was  that  she  was  determined  to  break  Great 
Britain's  naval  and  commercial  supremacy  ; 
it  was  that  she  must  have  an  outlet  on  the 
sea  through  Belgium  and  Holland ;  that 
she  must  force  a  way  to  the  Mediterranean 
through  Servia ;  that  she  must  carry  out 
her  financial  schemes  in  Asia  Minor  and 
the  Baghdad  region.  It  was  her  hatred  of 
the  Slav  and  her  growing  dread  of  Russia  ; 
it  was  her  desire  for  a  Colonial  Empire ; 
it  was  fear  of  a  revolution  at  home  ;  it  was 
the  outcome  of  long  years  of  Pan-Germanist 
philosophy  ;  it  was  the  result  of  pure  military 
ambition  and  the  class -domination  of  the 
Junkers.  Each  and  all  of  these  reasons  (and 
many  others)  were  in  turn  cited,  and  mag- 


28  THE   HEALING  OF   NATIONS 

nified  into  the  mainspring  of  the  war-;  and 
yet  even  to-day  we  cannot  say  which  was 
the  main  reason,  or  if  we  admit  them  all  we 
cannot  say  in  what  exact  proportions  their 
influences  were  combined. 

Moreover,  they  all  assume  that  Germany 
was  the  aggressor ;  and  we  have  to  remem- 
ber that  this  would  not  be  admitted  for  a 
moment  by  a  vast  number  of  the  Germans 
themselves— who  cease  not  to  say  that  the  war 
was  simply  forced  upon  them  by  the  hostile 
preparations  of  Russia,  by  the  vengefulness 
of  France,  by  the  jealous  foreign  policy  of 
England,  and  by  the  obvious  threat  em- 
bodied in  the  Entente  between  those  three 
nations ;  and  that  if  they  (the  Germans) 
made  preparations  for,  or  even  precipitated 
it,  that  was  only  out  of  the  sheer  necessity 
of  self-preservation.' 

Thus  we  are  still  left  without  any  generally 
accepted  conclusion  in  the  matter.  More- 
over, we  are  struck,  in  considering  the  list 
of  reasons  cited,  by  a  feeling  that  they  are 

'  As  an  example  of  this  belief,  read  the  manifesto  of 
Professor  Eucken,  who  represents  such  a  large  section  of 
German  opinion,  and  note  the  absolute  sincerity  of  its 
tone — as  well  as  its  simplicity. 


THE  ROOTS  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR  29 

all  in  their  way  rather  partial  and  super- 
ficial—that they  do  not  go  to  the  real  root 
of  the  subject. 

Out  of  them  all— and  after  the  first  period 
of  confusion  and  doubt  has  passed— our  own 
people  at  home  have  settled  down  into  the 
conviction  that  German  militarism  in  general, 
and  Prussian  Junkerdom  in  particular,  are 
to  blame,  and  that  for  the  good  of  the  world 
as  well  as  for  our  own  good  we  are  out 
to  fight  these  powers  of  evil.  Prussian 
class -militarism,  it  is  said,  under  which  for 
so  long  the  good  people  of  Germany  have 
groaned,  has  become  a  thing  intolerable. 
The  arrogance,  the  insolence,  of  the  Junker 
officer,  his  aristocratic  pretension,  his  bearish 
manners,  have  made  him  a  byword,  not 
only  in  his  own  country  but  all  over  Europe  ; 
and  his  belief  in  sheer  militarism  and  Jingo 
imperialism  has  made  him  a  menace.  The 
Kaiser  has  only  made  things  worse.  Vain 
and  flighty  to  a  degree,  and,  like  most  vain 
people,  rather  shallow,  Wilhelm  II  has  sup- 
posed himself  to  be  a  second  and  greater 
Bismarck,  destined  by  Providence  to  create 
the  said  Teutonic  world-empire.  It  is  simply 
to  fight  these  powers  of  evil  that  we  are  out. 


30  THE    HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

Of  course,  there  is  a  certain  amount  of 
truth  in  this  view  ;  at  the  same  time,  it  is 
lamentably  insufficient.  The  fact  is  that  in 
the  vast  flux  of  destiny  which  is  involved  in 
such  a  war  as  the  present,  and  which  no 
argument  can  really  adequately  represent,  we 
are  fain  to  snatch  at  some  neat  phrase,  how- 
ever superficial,  by  way  of  explanation.  And 
we  are  compelled,  moreover,  to  find  a 
phrase  which  will  put  our  own  efi"orts  in  an 
ideal  light— otherwise  we  cannot  go  on  fight- 
ing. No  nation  can  fight  confessedly  for 
a  mean  or  base  object.  Every  nation  in- 
scribes on  its  banner  Freedom,  Justice, 
^Religion,  Culture  versus  'Barbarism,  or 
something  of  the  kind,  and  in  a  sense 
redeems  itself  in  so  fighting.  It  saves  its 
soul  even  though  bodily  it  may  be  con- 
quered. And  this  is  not  hypocrisy,  but  a 
psychological  necessity,  though  each  nation, 
of  course,  accuses  the  other  of  hypocrisy. 

•We  are  fighting  "  to  put  down  militarism 
and  the  dominance  of  a  military  class,"  says 
the  great  B.R.,  and  one  can  only  hope  that 
when  the  war  is  over  we  shall  remember  and 
rivet  into  shape  this  great  and  good  purpose 
r-not  only  with  regard  to  foreign  militarism. 


THE  ROOTS  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR  31 

but  also  with  regard  to  our  own.  Certainly, 
whatever  other  or  side  views  we  may  take 
of  the  war,  we  are  bound  to  see  in  it  an 
illustration  of  the  danger  of  military  class- 
rule.  You  cannot  keep  a  6o-h.p.  Daimler 
motor-car  in  your  shed  for  years  and  years 
and  still  deny  yourself  the  pleasure  of  going 
out  on  the  public  road  with  it— even  though 
you  know  you  are  not  a  very  competent 
driver ;  and  you  cannot  continue  for  half 
a  century  perfecting  your  military  and  naval 
organization  without  in  the  end  making  the 
temptation  to  become  a  political  road -hog 
almost  irresistible. 

Still,  accepting  for  the  moment  the 
popular  explanation  given  above  of  Ger- 
many's action  as  to  some  degree  justified, 
we  cannot  help  seeing  how  superficial  and 
unsatisfactory  it  is,  because  it  at  once  raises 
the  question,  which,  indeed,  is  being  asked 
in  all  directions,  and  not  satisfactorily 
answered :  "  'How  does  it  happen  that  so 
peace-loving,  sociable,  and  friendly  a  people 
as  the  great  German  mass -folk,  as  we  have 
hitherto  known  them,  with  their  long  scien- 
tific and  literary  tradition,  their  love  of  music 
and  philosophy,  their  lager  beer  and  tobacco. 


32  THE    HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

and  their  generally  democratic  habits,  should 
have  been  led  into  a  situation  like  the 
present,  whether  by  a  clique  of  Junkers  or 
by  a  clique  of  militarist  philosophers  and 
politicians  ? "  And  the  answer  to  this  is 
both  interesting  and  important. 

It  resolves  itself  into  two  main  causes  : 
( I )  the  rise  of  the  great  German  commercial 
class  ;  and  (2)  the  political  ignorance  of  the 
German  people. 

It  is  obvious,  I  think,  that  a  military  aris- 
tocracy alone,  or  even  with  the  combined 
support  of  empire-building  philosophers  and 
a  jack-boot  Kaiser,  could  not  have  hurried 
the  solid  German  nation  into  so  strange  a 
situation.  In  old  days,  and  under  an 
avowedly  feudal  order  of  society,  such  a 
thing  might  well  have  happened.  But  to-day 
the  source  and  seat  of  power  has  passed  from 
crowned  heads  and  barons  into  another 
social  stratum.  It  is  the  financial  and  com- 
mercial classes  in  the  modern  States  who 
have  the  sway ;  and  unless  these  classes 
desire  it  the  military  cliques  may  plot  for 
war  in  vain.  Since  1870,  and  the  unifica- 
tion of  Germany,  the  growth  of  her  manu- 
factures and  her  trade  has  been  enormous  ; 


THE  ROOTS  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR  33 

her  commercial  prosperity  has  gone  up  by 
leaps  and  bounds ;  and  this  extension  of 
trade,  iespecially  of  international  trade,  has 
led— as  it  had  already  so  conspicuously  done 
in  England— to  the  development  of  corre- 
sponding ideals  and  habits  of  life  among  the 
population.  The  modest,  simple -living, 
middle-class  households  of  fifty  years  ago 
have  largely  disappeared,  and  in  their  place 
have  sprung  up,  at  any  rate  in  the  larger 
towns,  the  very  same  commercial  and  para- 
sitical classes,  with  their  Philistine  luxury 
and  fatuous  ideals,  which  have  been  so 
depressing  and  distressing  a  feature  of  our 
social  life  during  the  same  period. 
Naturally,  the  desire  of  these  classes  has 
been  for  the  glorification  of  Germany,  the 
establishment  of  an  absolutely  world-wide 
commercial  supremacy,  and  the  ousting  of 
England  from  her  markets. 

"  Germany,"  said  Peter  Kropotkin  '  a  year 
or  two  ago,  "  on  entering  a  striking  period 
of  juvenile  activity,  quickly  succeeded  in 
doubling  and  trebling  her  industrial  pro- 
ductivity,   and   soon    increasing   it    tenfold  ; 

'    Wars  and  Capitalism,  by  P.   Kropotkin.      (Freedom 
Press.) 

3 


34  THE    HEALING   OF    NATIONS 

and  now  the  German  middle  classes  covet 
new  sources  of  enrichment  in  the  plains  of 
Poland,  in  the  prairies  of  Hungary,  on  the 
plateaux  of  Africa,  and  especially  around 
the  railway  line  to  Baghdad— in  the  rich 
valleys  of  Asia  Minor,  which  can  provide 
German  capitalists  with  a  labouring  popu- 
lation ready  to  be  exploited  under  one  of 
the  most  beautiful  skies  in  the  world.  It 
may  be  so  with  Egypt  some  day.  There- 
fore it  is  ports  for  exports,  and  especially 
military  ports,  in  the  Adriatic,  the  Persian 
Gulf,  on  the  African  coast  in  Beira,  and 
also  in  the  Pacific,  that  these  schemers  of 
German  colonial  trade  wish  to  conquer. 
Their  faithful  servant,  the  German  Empire, 
with  its  armies  and  ironclads,  is  at  their 
service  for  this  purpose." 

It  is  this  class,  then,  which  by  backing 
both  financially  and  morally  the  military 
class  has  been  chiefly  responsible  for  bring- 
ing about  the  war.  Not  that  I  mean,  in 
saying  so,  that  the  commercial  folk  of  Ger- 
many have  direcdy  instigated  its  outbreak 
at  the  present  moment  and  in  the  present 
circumstances— for  many,  or  most  of  them, 
must  have  seen  how  dangerous  it  was  likely 


THE  ROOTS  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR  35 

to  prove  to  their  trade.  But  in  respect  of 
the  general  poHcy  which  they  have  so  long 
pursued  they  are  responsible.  One  cannot 
go  on  for  years  (and  let  England,  too, 
remember  this)  preaching  militarism  as  a 
means  of  securing  commercial  advantage, 
and  then  refuse  to  be  answerable  for  the 
results  to  which  such  a  policy  may  lead. 
The  Junker  classes  of  Prussia  and  their 
Kaiser  might  be  suffering  from  a  bad  attack 
of  swelled  head  ;  vanity  and  arrogance  might 
be  filling  them  with  dreams  of  world- 
empire  ;  but  there  would  have  been  no 
immediate  European  war  had  not  the  vast 
trade-interests  of  Germany  come  into  con- 
flict, or  seemed  to  come  into  conflict,  with 
the  trade-interests  of  the  surrounding 
nations— had  not  the  financial  greed  of  the 
nation  been  stirred,  as  well  as  its  military 
vanity. 

And  talking  of  general  trade  and  finance, 
one  must  not  forget  to  include  the  enormous 
powers  exercised  in  the  present  day  by 
individual  corporations  and  individual 
financiers  who  intrude  their  operations  into 
the  sphere  of  politics.  We  saw  that  in  our 
own  Boer  iWar ;    and  behind  the  scenes  in 


36  THE    HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

Germany  to-day  similar  influences  are  at 
work.  The  Deutsche  Bank,  with  immense 
properties  all  over  the  world,  and  some 
£85,000,000  sterling  in  its  hands  in  deposits 
alone,  initiated  financially  the  Baghdad  Rail- 
way scheme.  Its  head,  'Herr  Arthur  von 
Gwinner,  the  great  financier,  is  a,  close 
adviser  of  the  Kaiser.  "  The  railway  is 
already  nearly  half  built,  and  it  represents  a 
German  investment  of  between  £16,000,000 
and  £18,000,000.  Let  this  be  thought  of 
when  people  imagine  that  Germany  and 
Austria  went  to  war  with  the  idea  of 
avenging  the  murder  of  an  Archduke. 
.  .  .  All  German  trade  would  suffer 
if  the  Baghdad  Railway  scheme  were 
to  fail."  »  Then  there  is  Herr  August 
Thyssen— "  King  Thyssen  "— '*  who  owns  coal- 
mines, rolling  mills,  harbours,  and  docks 
throughout  Germany,  iron-ore  mines  in 
France,  warehouses  in  Russia,  and  entre- 
pots in  nearly  every  country  from  Brazil 
and  Argentina  to  India  .2  He  has  declared 
that  German  interests  in  Asia  Minor  must 
be  safeguarded  at  all  costs.    But  Russia  also 

'  See  Nash's  Magazine  for   October,   19 14,    article   by 
"Diplomatist."  «  Ibid. 


THE  ROOTS  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR  37 

has  large  prospective  commercial  interests  in 
Asia  Minor.  The  moral  is  clear  and  needs 
no  enforcing.  Such  men  as  these— and  many 
others,  the  Rathenaus,  Siemens,  Krupps, 
Ballins,  and  Heinekens— exercise  in  Germany 
an  immense  political  influence,  just  as  do 
our  financial  magnates  at  home.  They  repre- 
sent the  peaks  and  summits  of  wide -spread- 
ing commercial  activities  whose  bases  are 
rooted  among  the  general  public.  Yet 
through  it  all  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that 
they  represent  in  each  case  (as  I  shall 
explain  more  clearly  presently)  the  interests 
of  a  class— ihe  commercial  class— but  not  of 
the  whole  nation. 

One  must,  then,  modify  the  first  conclusion, 
that  the  blame  of  the  war  rests  with  the 
military  class,  by  adding  a  second  factor, 
namely,  the  rise  and  influence  of  the  com- 
mercial class.  These  two  classes,  acting  and 
reacting  on  each  other,  and  pushing— though 
for  different  reasons— in  the  same  direction, 
are  answerable,  as  far  as  Germany  is  con- 
cerned, for  dragging  Europe  into  this 
trouble  ;     and   they  must   share   the   blame. 

U  it  is  true,  as  already  suggested,  that 
Germany's  action  has  only  been  that  of  the 


38  THE    HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

spark  that  fires  the  magazine,  still  her  part 
in  the  affair  affords  such  an  extraordinarily 
illuminating  text  and  illustration  that  one 
may  be  excused  for  dwelling  on  it. 

Here,  in  her  case,  we  have  the  divisions 
of  a  nation's  life  set  out  in  well-marked 
fashion.  -We  have  a  military  clique  headed 
by  a  personal  and  sadly  irresponsible  ruler ; 
we  have  a  vulgar  and  much  swollen  com- 
mercial class  ;  and  then,  besides  these  two, 
we  have  a  huge  ant's  nest  of  professors  and 
students,  a  large  population  of  intelligent  and 
well-trained  factory  workers,  and  a  vast 
residuum  of  peasants.  Thus  we  have  at 
least  five  distinct  classes,  but  of  these  the 
last  three  have — till  thirty  or  forty  years 
ago — paid  little  or  no  attention  to  political 
matters.  The  professors  and  students  have 
had  their  noses  buried  in  their  departmental 
science  and  fach  studies  ;  the  artisans  have 
been  engrossed  with  their  technical  work, 
and  have  been  only  gradually  drifting  away 
from  their  capitalist  employers  and  into  the 
Socialist  camp  ;  and  the  peasants — as  else- 
where over  the  world,  absorbed  in  their 
laborious  and  ever-necessary  labours— have 
accepted  their  fate  and  paid  but  little  atten- 


THE   ROOTS   OF   THE   GREAT   WAR     39 

tion  to  what  was  going  on  over  their  heads. 
Yet  these  three  last-mentioned  classes,  form- 
ing the  great  bulk  of  the  nation,  have  been 
swept  away,  and  suddenly  at  the  last,  into 
a  huge  embroilment  in  which  to  begin  with 
they  had  no  interest  or  profit. 

This  may  seem  strange,  but  the  process 
after  all  is  quite  simple,  and  to  study  it 
in  the  case  of  Germany  may  throw  helpful 
light^  on  our  own  affairs.  However  the 
blame  may  be  apportioned  between  the 
Junker  and  commercial  classes,  it  is  clear 
that,  fired  by  the  Bismarckian  programme, 
and  greatly  overstretching  it,  they  played 
into  each  other's  hands.  The  former  relied 
for  the  financing  of  its  schemes  on  the  sup- 
port of  the  commercials.  The  latter  saw 
in  the  militarists  a  power  which  might 
increase  Germany's  trade-supremacy.  Vanity 
and  greed  are  met  together,  patriotism  and 
profits  have  kissed  each  other.  A  Navy 
League  and  an  Army  League  and  an  Air 
League  arose.  Professors  and  teachers  were 
subsidized  in  the  universities  ;  the  children 
were  taught  Pan -Germanism  in  the  schools  ; 
a  new  map  of  Europe  was  put  before  them. 
An  enormous  literature  grew  up  on  the  lines 


40  THE    HEALING  OF   NATIONS 

of  Treitschke,  Houston  Chamberlain,  and 
Bernhardi,  with  novels  and  romances  to 
illustrate  side-issues,  and  the  Press  playing 
martial  music.  The  students  and  intel- 
lectuals began  to  be  infected ;  the  small 
traders  and  shopkeepers  were  moved  ;  and 
the  war-fever  gradually  spread  through  the 
nation.  As  to  the  artisans,  they  may,  as 
I  have  said,  have  largely  belonged  to  the 
Socialist  party — with  its  poll  of  four  million 
votes  in  the  last  election — and  in  the  words 
of  Herr  Haase  in  the  Reichstag  just  before 
the  war,  they  may  have  wished  to  hold  them- 
selves apart  from  "  this  cursed  Imperialist 
policy  ", ;  but  when  the  war  actually  arrived, 
and  the  fever,  and  the  threat  of  Russia,  and 
the  fury  of  conscription,  they,  perforce  had  to 
give  way  and  join  in.  How  on  earth  could 
they  do  otherwise?  And  the  peasants— even 
if  they  escaped  the  fever— could  not  escape 
the  compulsion  of  authority  nor  the  old 
blind  tradition  of  obedience.  They  do  not 
know,  even  to-day,  why  they  are  fighting  ; 
and  they  hardly  know  whom  they  are  fight- 
ing, but  in  their  ancient  resignation  they 
accept  the  inevitable  and  shout  "  Deutsch- 
land   iibcr   Alles  "    with   the   rest.     And   so 


THE   ROOTS   OF   THE   GREAT   WAR    41 

a  whole  nation  is  swept  off  its  feet  by  a 
small  section  of  it,  and  the  insolence  of  a 
class  becomes,  as  in  Louvain  and  Rheims, 
the  scandal  of  the  world.' 

And  the  people  bleed ;  yes,  it  is  always 
the  people  who  bleed.  The  trains  arrive 
at  the  hospital  bases,  hundreds,  positively 
hundreds  of  them,  full  of  wounded.  Shat- 
tered human  forms  lie  in  thousands  on  straw 
inside  the  trucks  and  wagons,  or  sit  pain- 
fully reclined  in  the  passenger  compartments, 
their  faces  grimed,  their  clothes  ragged,  their 
toes  protruding  from  their  boots.  Some 
have  been  stretched  on  the  battlefield  for 
forty-eight  hours,  or  even  more,  tormented 
by  frost  at  night,  covered  with  flies  by  day, 
without  so  much  as  a  drink  of  water.  And 
those  that  have  not  already  become  a  mere 
lifeless  heap  of  rags  have  been  jolted  in 
country  carts  to  some  railway-station,  and 
there,  or  at  successive  junctions,  have  been 
shunted  on  sidings  for  endless  hours.  And 
now,  with  their  wounds  still  slowly  bleed- 
ing or  oozing,  they  are  picked  out  by  tender 

*  In  order  to  realize  how  easy  such  a  process  is,  we  have 
only  to  remember  the  steps  by  which  the  outbreak  of  the 
Boer  War  in  1899  was  engineered. 


42  THE    HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

hands,  and  the  most  crying  cases  are  roughly, 
dressed  before  consigning  to  a  hospital. 
And  some  faces  are  shattered,  hardly  recog- 
nizable, and  some  have  limbs  torn  away ; 
and  there  are  internal  wounds  unspeakable, 
and  countenances  deadly  pallid,  and  moan- 
ings  which  cannot  be  stifled,  and  silences 
worse  than  moans. 

Yes,  the  agony  and  bloody  sweat  of 
battlefields  endured  for  the  domination  or 
the  ambition  of  a  class  is  appalling.  But 
in  many  cases,  though  more  dramatic  and 
appealing  to  the  imagination,  one  may  doubt 
if  it  is  worse  than  the  year-long  and  age-long 
agony  of  daily  life  endured  for  the  same 
reason. 

Maeterlinck,  in  his  eloquent  and  fiery 
letter  to  the  Daily  Mall  of  September  14th, 
maintained  that  the  whole  German  nation  is 
equally  to  blame  in  this  afi"air— that  all  classes 
are  equally  involved  in  it,  with  no  degrees 
of  guilt.  We  may  excuse  the  warmth  of 
personal  feeling  which  makes  him  say  this, 
but  we  cannot  accept  the  view.  We  are 
bound  to  point  out  that  it  is  only  by  some 
such  analysis  as  the  above,  and  estimation 
of   the   method  by   which  the   delusions   of 


THE  ROOTS  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR  43 

one  class  may  be  communicated  to  the  others, 
that  we  can  guard  ourselves,  too,  from  falling 
into  similar  delusions. 

I  mentioned  that  besides  the  growth  of 
the  commercial  class,  a  second  great  cause 
of  the  war  was  the  political  ignorance  of 
the  German  people.  And  this  is  important. 
Fifty  years  ago,  and  before  that,  when  Ger- 
many was  divided  up  into  scores  of  small 
States  and  Duchies,  the  mass  of  its  people 
had  no  practical  interest  in  politics.  Such 
politics  as  existed,  as  between  one  Duchy 
and  another,  were  mere  teacup  politics .  Read 
Eckermann's  Conversations,  and  see  how 
small  a  part  they  played  in  Goethe's  mind. 
That  may  have  been  an  advantage  in  one 
way.  The  brains  of  the  nation  went  into 
science,  literature,  music.  And  when,  after 
1870,  the  unification  of  Germany  came,  and 
the  political  leadership  passed  over  to 
Prussia,  the  same  state  of  affairs  for  a  long 
time  continued ;  the  professors  continued 
their  investigations  in  the  matters  of  the 
thyroid  gland  or  the  rock  inscriptions  in  the 
Isle  of  Thera,  but  they  left  the  internal 
regulation  of  the  State  and  its  foreign  policy 


44         THE   HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

confidently  in  the  hands  of  the  Kaiser  and 
the  nominees  of  the  great  and  rising'  hour- 
geolsle,  and  themselves  remained  unobser- 
vant and  uninstructed  in  such  matters.  It 
was  only  when  these  latter  powers  declared 
—as  in  the  Emperor's  pan -German  pro- 
clamation of  1896— that  a  Teutonic  world- 
empire  was  about  to  be  formed,  and  that 
the  study  of  welt-politlk  was  the  duty  of 
every  serious  German,  that  the  thinking  and 
reading  portion  of  the  population  suddenly 
turned  its  attention  to  this  subject.  An 
immense  mass  of  political  writings— pam:- 
phlets,  prophecies,  military  and  economic 
treatises,  romances  of  German  conquest,  and 
the  like— naturally  many  of  them  of  the 
crudest  sort,  was  poured  forth  and  eagerly 
accepted  by  the  public,  and  a  veritable  Fool's 
Paradise  of  German  supremacy  arose.  It 
is  only  in  this  way,  by  noting  the  long- 
preceding  ignorance  of  the  German  citizen 
in  the  matter  of  politics,  his  absolute  former 
non-interference  in  public  affairs,  and  the 
dazed  state  of  his  mind  when  he  suddenly 
found  himself  on  the  supposed  pinnacle  of 
world-power— that  we  can  explain  his  easy 
acceptance    of    such    cheap    and    ad    hoc 


THE   ROOTS   OF  THE   GREAT  WAR    45 

publications  as  those  of  Bernhardi  and 
iHouston  Chamberlain,  and  the  fact  that  he 
was  so  easily  rushed  into  the  false  situation 
of  the  present  war.'  The  absurd  canards 
which  at  an  early  date  gained  currency  in 
Berlin— as  that  the  United  States  had  swal- 
lowed Canada,  that  the  Afghans  in  mass  were 
invading  India,  that  Ireland  was  plunged 
in  civil  war— point  in  the  same  direction ; 
and  so  do  the  barbarities  of  the  Teutonic 
troops  in  the  matters  of  humanity  and  art. 
For  though  in  all  war  and  in  the  heat  of 
battle  there  are  barbarhies  perpetrated,  it 
argues  a  strange  state  of  the  German  national 
psychology  that  in  this  case  a  heartless 
severity  and  destruction  of  the  enemy's  life 
and  property  should  have  been  preached 
beforehand,  and  quite  deliberately,  by  pro- 
fessors and  militarists,  and  accepted,  ap- 
parently, by  the  general  public.  It  argues, 
to  say  the  least,  a  strange  want  of  per- 
ception of  the  very  unfavourable  impression 

'  Of  course  we  must  remember  that  there  has  been  all 
along  and  is  now  in  Germany  a  very  large  party,  Socialist 
and  other,  which  has  not  been  thus  carried  away  ;  but  for 
the  moment  its  mouth  is  closed  and  it  cannot  make  itself 
heard. 


46  THE    HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

which   such   a    programme   must   inevitably 
excite  in  the  mind  of  the  world  at  large. 

It  is,  no  doubt,  pleasant  in  its  way  for  us 
British  to  draw  this  picture  of  Germany, 
and  to  trace  the  causes  which  led  the  ruling; 
powers  there,  years  ago,  to  make  up  their 
minds  for  war,  because,  of  course,  the  pro- 
cess in  some  degree  exonerates  us.  But, 
as  I  have  already  said,  I  have  dwelt  on 
Germany,  not  only  because  she  affords 
such  a  good  illustration  of  what  to  avoid, 
but  also  because  she  affords  so  clear 
an  example  of  what  is  going  on  else- 
where in  Europe— in  England  and  France 
and  Italy,  and  among  all  the  modern  nations. 
kWe  cannot  blame  Germany  without  implicitly 
also  blaming  these. 

What,  indeed,  shall  we  say  of  England? 
Germany  has  for  years  maintained  that  with 
her  own  growing  population  and  her  grow- 
ing trade  she  needs  a  more  extended  sea- 
board in  Europe,  and  coaling  stations  and 
colonies  in  other  regions  of  the  globe,  but 
that  England,  jealous  of  commercial 
supremacy,  has  been  determined  to  deny 
her  these,  and,  if  possible,  to.  crush  her  ;    that 


THE  ROOTS  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR  47 

she  (Germany)  has  Hved  in  perpetual  fear 
and  panic ;  and  that  if  in  this  case  she 
has  been  the  first  to  strike,  it  has  only  been 
because  to  wait  England's  opportunity  would 
have  been  to  court  defeat.  Allowing  for 
the  exaggerations  inseparable  from  opposed 
points  of  view,  is  there  not  some  justification 
for  this  plea?  England,  who  plunged  into 
the  Crimean  War  in  order  to  prevent  Russia 
from  obtaining  a  seaboard  and  her  natural 
commercial  expansion,  and  who  afterwards 
joined  with  Russia  in  order  to  plunder  Persia 
and  to  prevent  Germany  from  getting  her 
railways  along  the  Persian  Gulf  ;  who  calmly 
appropriated  Egypt,  with  its  valuable  cotton- 
lands  and  market ;  who,  at  the  behest  of  a 
group  of  capitalists  and  financiers,  turned  her 
great  military  machine  on  a  little  nation  of 
Boer  farmers  in  South  Africa ;  who,  it  is 
said,'  sold  300,000  tons  of  coal  to  Russia 
to  aid  her  fleet  against  Japan,  and  at  the 
same  time  furnished  Japan  with  gold  at  a 
high  rate  of  interest  for  use  against  Russia 
—what  trust  can  be  placed  in  her? 
"  England,"  says  Bernhardi,  "  in  spite  of 
all  her  pretences  of  a  liberal  and  philan- 
*  See  Kropotkin's  War  and  Capitalism,  p.  12 


48  THE   HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

thropic  policy,  has  never  sought  any  other 
object  than  personal  advantage  and  the  un- 
scrupulous suppression  of  her  rivals."     Let 
us  hope  that  this  "  never  "  is  too  harsh  ;   let 
us  at  least  say  "  hardly  ever  "  ;   but  still,  are 
vfQ  not  compelled  to  admit  that  if  the  rise 
of    commercial    ambition    in    Germany    has 
figured  as  a  danger  to  us,  our  far  greater 
commercial  ambitions  have  not  only  figured 
as  a  danger  to  Germany,  but,  in  conjunction 
with  our  alliance  with  France  and  Russia, 
her  ancient  foes,  may  well  have  led  to  a 
state  of  positive  panic  among  her  people? 
And  if,  as  the  Allies  would  doubtless  say, 
there  was  really  no  need  for  any  such  panic, 
the  situation  was  obviously  sufficiently  grave 
to  be  easily  made  use  of  by  a  military  class 
for  its  own  ends,  or  by  an  armaments  ring 
or  a  clique  of  financiers  for  theirs.     Indeed, 
it  would  be  interesting  to  know  what  enor- 
mous profits  Kruppism  (to  use  H.  G.  Wells' 
expressive  term)   has  already  made  out  of 
this  world-madness.     Nor  can  it  be  denied 
that  the  commercial  interest  in  England,  if 
not   deliberately   intending   to   provoke   war 
with  Germany,  has  not  been  at  all  sorry  to 
seize  this  opportunity  of  laying  a  rival  Power 


THE  ROOTS  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR  49 

low— if  only  in  order  to  snatch  the  said 
rival's  trade.  That,  indeed,  the  daily  Press 
reveals  only  too  clearly. 

From  all  this  the  danger  of  class -domina- 
tion emerges  more  and  more  into  relief.  In 
Prussia  the  old  Feudal  caste  remains— in  a 
decadent  state,  certainly,  but  perhaps  for 
that  very  reason  more  arrogant,  more  vulgar, 
and  less  conscious  of  any  noblesse  oblige 
than  even  before.  By  itself,  however,  and 
if  unsupported  by  the  commercial  class, 
it  would  probably  have  done  little  harm. 
In  Britain  the  Feudal  caste  has  ceased  to 
be  exclusively  military,  and  has  become 
blended  with  the  commercial  class.  The 
British  aristocracy  now  consists  largely  or 
chiefly  of  retired  grocers  and  brewers.  Com- 
mercialism here  has  become  more  confessedly 
dominant  than  in  Germany,  and  whereas 
there  the  commercial  class  may  support  the 
military  in  its  ambitions,  here  the  commer- 
cial class  uses  the  military  as  a  matter  of 
course  and  for  its  own  ends.  We  have 
become  a  Nation  of  Shopkeepers  having 
our  own  revolvers  and  machine-guns  behind 
the  counter. 

And   yet   not   really  a   Nation   of   Shop- 

4 


50  THE   HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

keepers,  but  rather  a  nation  ruled  by  a  shop- 
keeping  class. 

People  sometimes  talk  as  if  commercial 
prosperity  and  the  interests  of  the  com- 
imercial  folk  represented  the  life  of  the  whole 
nation.  That  is  a  way  of  speaking,  and 
it  illustrates  certainly  a  common  modern 
delusion.  But  it  is  far  from  the  truth.  The 
trading  and  capitalist  folk  are  only  a  class, 
and  they  do  not,  properly  speaking,  represent 
the  nation.  They  do  not  represent  the  land- 
owning and  the  farming  interests,  both  of 
which  detest  them  ;  they  do  not  represent 
the  artisans  and  industrial  workers,  who 
have  expressly  formed  themselves  into 
unions  in  order  to  fight  them,  and  who 
have  only  been  able  to  maintain  their  rights 
by  so  doing ;  they  do  not  represent  the 
labourers  and  peasants,  who  are  ground 
under  their  heel.  It  would  take  too  long  to 
go  into  the  economics  of  this  subject,  in- 
teresting though  they  are.'  But  a  very  brief 
survey  of  facts  shows  us  that  wherever  the 
capitalist  and  trading  classes  have  triumphed 
—as  in  England  early  last  century,  and  until 
socialistic  legislation  was  called  in  to  check 

»  See  note  infra  on  "Commercial  Prosperity,"  p.  167. 


THE  ROOTS  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR  51 

them— the  condition  of  the  mass  of  the  people 
has  by  no  means  improved,  rather  the  con- 
trary. Japan  has  developed  a  world  trade, 
and  is  on  the  look  out  for  more,  yet  never 
before  has  there  been  such  distress  among 
her  mass -populations.  Russia  has  been 
lately  moving  in  the  same  direction ;  her 
commercial  interests  are  rapidly  progress- 
ing, but  her  peasantry  is  at  a  standstill, 
France  and  Italy  have  already  grown  a  fat 
bourgeoisie,  but  their  workers  remain  in  a 
limbo  of  poverty  and  strikes.  And  in  all 
these  countries,  including  Germany,  Socialism 
has  arisen  as  a  protest  against  the  com- 
mercial order— which  fact  certainly  does  not 
look  as  if  commercialism  were  a  generally 
acknowledged  benefit. 

No,  commercial  prosperity  means  only  the 
prosperity  of  a  class.  Yet  such  is  the  curious 
glamour  that  surrounds  this  subject  and 
makes  a  fetish  of  statistics  about  "  imports 
and  exports,"  that  nothing  is  more  common 
than  for  such  prosperity  to  be  taken  to  mean 
the  prosperity  of  the  nation  as  a  whole. 
The  commercial  people,  having  command  of 
the  Press,  and  of  the  avenues  and  highways 
of   public   influence,    do   not   find    it   at   all 


52  THE   HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

difficult  to  persuade  the  nation  that  they  are 
its  representatives,  and  that  their  advantage 
is  the  advantage  of  all.  This  illusion  is 
only  a  part,  I  suppose,  of  a  historical  neces- 
sity, which  as  the  Feudal  regime  passes 
brings  into  prominence  the  Commercial 
regime  ;  but  do  not  let  us  be  deluded  by 
it,  nor  forget  that  in  submitting  to  the 
latter  we  are  being  nose-led  by  a  class  just 
as  much  as  the  Germans  have  been  in  sub- 
mitting to  the  Prussian  Junkers.  Do  not 
let  us,  at  the  behest  of  either  class,  be  so 
foolish  as  to  set  out  in  vain  pursuit  of  world- 
empire  ;  and,  above  all,  do  not  let  us,  in 
freeing  ourselves  from  military  class-rule, 
fall  under  the  domination  of  financiers  and 
commercial  diplomats.  Let  us  remember 
that  wars  for  world-markets  are  made  for 
the  benefit  of  the  merchant  class  and  not 
for  the  benefit  of  the  mass -people,  and 
that  in  this  respect  England  has  been  as 
much,  to  blame  as  Germany  or  any  other 
\  nation— nay,  pretty  obviously  more  so. 
What  is  clearly  wanted— and  indeed  is  the 
next  stage  of  human  evolution  in  England 
and  in  all  Western  lands— is  that  the  people 
should   emancipate    themselves    from   class- 


THE   ROOTS   OF   THE   GREAT   WAR     53 

domination,  class -glamour,  and  learn  to  act 
freely  from  their  own  initiative.  I  know 
it  is  difficult.  It  means  a  spirit  of  indepen- 
dence, courage,  willingness  to  make  sacrifice. 
It  means  education,  alertness  to  guard 
against  the  insidious  schemes  of  wire-pullers 
and  pressmen,  as  well  as  of  militarists  and 
commercials.  It  means  the  perception  that 
only  through  eternal  vigilance  can  freedom 
be  maintained.  Yet  it  is  the  only  true 
Democracy  ;  and  the  logic  of  its  arrival  is 
assured  to  us  by  the  historical  necessity  that 
progress  in  all  countries  must  pass  through 
the  preliminary  stages  of  feudalism  and 
commercialism  on  its  way  to  realize  the  true 
life  of  the  mass-peoples. 

To-day  the  uprising;  of  Socialist  ideals, 
of  the  power  of  Trade  Unions,  and  especially 
the  formation  of  International  Unions,  show 
us  that  we  are  on  the  verge  of  this  third 
stage.  We  are  shaping  our  way  towards 
the  real  Democracy,  with  the  attainment  of 
which  wars— though  they  will  not  cease  from 
the  world— will  certainly  become  much  rarer. 
The  international  entente  already  establish- 
ing itself  among  the  manual  workers  of  all 
the  European  countries— and  which  has  now 


54  THE   HEALING  OF   NATIONS 

become  an  accepted  principle  of  the  Labour 
movement— is  a  guarantee  and  a  promise  of 
a  more  peaceful  era  ;  and  those  who  know 
the  artisans  and  peasants  of  this  and  other 
countries  know  well  how  little  enmity  they 
harbour  in  their  breasts  against  each  other. 
Racial  and  religious  wars  will  no  doubt  for 
long  continue ;  but  wars  to  satisfy  the 
ambitions  of  a  military  clique  or  a  personal 
ruler,  or  the  ambitions  of  a  commercial 
group,  or  the  schemes  of  financiers,  or  the 
engineering  of  the  Press— wars  from  these 
all  too  fruitful  causes  will,  under  a  sensible 
Democracy,  cease.  If  Britain,  during  the 
last  twenty  years,  had  really  favoured  the 
cause  of  the  People  and  their  international 
understanding,  there  would  have  been  no 
war  now,  for  her  espousal  of  the  mass- 
peoples'  cause  would  have  made  her  so 
strong  that  it  would  have  been  too  risky  for 
any  Government  to  attack  her.  But  of 
course  that  could  not  have  happened,  for 
the  simple  reason  that  Conservatism  and 
Liberalism  are  not  Democracy.  Conserva- 
tism is  Feudalism,  Liberalism  is  Commer- 
cialism, and  Socialism  only  is  in  its  essence 
Democracy.     It  is  no  good  scolding  at  Sir 


THE  ROOTS  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR  55 

Edward  Grey  for  making  friends  with  the 
Russian  Government ;  for  his  only  alterna- 
tive would  have  been  to  join  the  "  Inter- 
national "—which  he  certainly  could  not  do, 
being  essentially  a  creature  of  the  commer- 
cial regime.  The  "  Balance  of  Power  "  and 
the  ententes  and  alliances  of  Figure-head 
Governments  had  to  go  on,  till  the  day— 
which  we  hope  is  at  hand— when  Figure- 
heads will  be  no  more  needed. 


THE    CASE    AGAINST    GERMANYi 

November,  1914. 

With  every  wish  to  do  justice  to  Germany, 
to  whose  literature  I  feel  I  owe  such  a 
debt,  and  among  whose  people  I  have  so 
many  personal  friends  ;  allowing  also  the 
utmost  for  the  general  causes  in  Europe 
which  have  been  for  years  leading  up 
towards  war — and  some  of  which  I  have 
indicated  already  in  the  pages  above — I  still 
feel  it  is  impossible  not  to  throw  on  her 
the  immediate  blame  for  the  present  catas- 
trophe. 

However  we  distribute  the  indictment  and 
the  charges  among  the  various  parties  con- 
cerned, whether  we  accuse  mainly  the  sway 
of  Prussian  Militarism  or  the  rise  of  German 
Commercialism,    or    the    long   tradition   and 

growth  of  a  Welt-politik  philosophy,  or  the 

56 


THE   CASE   AGAINST   GERMANY       57 

general  political  ignorance  which  gave  to 
these  influences  such  rash  and  uncritical 
acceptance  ;  or  whether  we  accuse  the  some- 
what difficult  and  variable  personal  equation 
of  the  Kaiser  himself — the  fact  still  remains 
that  for  years  and  years  this  war  has  been 
by  the  German  Government  most  deliberately 
and  systematically  prepared  for.  The  fact 
remains  that  Britain — though  for  a  long 
period  she  had  foreseen  danger  and  had 
on  the  naval  side  slowly  braced  herself 
to  meet  it— was  on  the  military  side  caught 
at  the  last  moment  unprepared ;  that 
France  was  so  little  intending  war  that  a 
large  portion  of  the  nation  was  actually  still 
protesting  against  an  increase  in  the  size 
of  the  standing  army ;  and  that  Russia 
— whatever  plans  she  may  have  had,  or  not 
had,  in  mind — was  confessedly  at  the  same 
period  two  years  or  so  behind  in  the  organi- 
zation and  completion  of  her  military  estab- 
lishment. 

(Whether  right  or  wrong,  it  can  hardly 
be  denied  that  the  moment  of  the  precipi- 
tation of  war  was  chosen  and  insisted  on  by 
Germany.  After  Austria's  monstrous  and 
insulting  dictation  to  Servia  (23rd  July),  and 


58  THE   HEALING  OF   NATIONS 

Servia's  incredibly  humble  apology  (25th), 
Austria  was  still  not  allowed  to  accept  the 
latter,  and  the  conference  proposed  (26th 
July)  by  Sir  E.  Grey — though  accepted  by 
France,  Russia,  and  Italy — was  refused  by 
Germany  (27th).  On  the  28th  Austria 
declared  war  on  Servia.  It  was  perfectly 
clear  to  every  one  that  Russia— after  what 
had  happened  before  in  1908-9,  with 
regard  to  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina — could 
not  possibly  allow  this  insult  to  Servia  to 
pass.  Germany,  therefore,  by  this  move 
forced  Russia's  hand ;  and  at  a  moment 
when  Russia  was  known  or  supposed  to 
be  comparatively  unprepared.'  France  had 
been  involved  in  some  military  scandals 
and  was  still  debating'  as  to  the  two 
years'  instead  of  three  years'  period  for 
her  normal  military  service.  The  German 
Ambassador  at  Vienna  had  openly  said  that 
France  was  not  in  a  condition  for  facing  a 
war.  England  was  currently  supposed  in 
Germany  to  be  seriously  hampered  by 
domestic  troubles  at  home — chiefly  of  course 

'  It  is  said  that  Russia  took  some  steps  towards  mobi- 
lization as  early  as  the  25th.  If  she  did,  that  would  seem 
quite  natural  under  the  circumstances. 


THE   CASE   AGAINST   GERMANY       59 

among  the  Irish,  but  also  amongst  the  Suffra- 
gettes (  !)  and  by  widespread  disaffection 
in  India.  It  was  thought,  therefore,  that 
England  would  certainly  remain  neutral — 
and  I  think  we  may  fairly  say  that  the 
extent  to  which  Germany  counted  on  this 
expected  neutrality  is  evidenced  by  her 
disappointment  and  public  rage  when  she 
found  that  she  was  mistaken. 

Germany's  initiative  in  the  matter  is 
further  evidenced  by  her  instant  readiness 
to  attack.  She  was  in  Luxemburg  within 
a  few  hours  of  the  declaration  of  war  with 
Russia  ;  and  it  was  clearly  her  intention  to 
"  rush "  Paris  and  then  turn  back  upon 
Russia. 

It  may  be  said  that  from  her  own  point  of 
view  Germany  was  quite  right  to  take  the 
initiative.  If  she  sincerely  believed  that  the 
Entente  was  plotting  her  downfall,  she  was 
justified  in  attacking  instead  of  waiting  to 
be  attacked.  That  may  be  so.  It  is  the  line 
to  which  General  Bernhardi  again  returns  in 
his  latest  book  {Britain  as  Germany's  Vassal, 
translated  by  J.  Ellis  Barker).  But  it  does 
not  alter  the  fact  that  this  was  an  immense 
responsibility  to  take,  and  that  the  immediate 


6o  THE   HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

onus  of  the  war  rests  with  Germany.  If 
she  under  all  the  above  circumstances  pre- 
cipitated war,  she  can  hardly  be  surprised 
if  the  judgment  of  Europe  (one  may  also 
say  the  world)  is  against  her.  If  she  has 
played  her  cards  so  badly  as  to  put  herself 
entirely  in  the  wrong,  she  must  naturally 
"  dree  her  weird." 

There  remains  the  case  of  her  treatment 
of  Belgium.  Britain  certainly — who  has  only 
lately  assisted  at  the  dismemberment  of 
Persia,  and  who  is  even  now  allowing 
Russia  (in  the  face  of  Persian  protests)  to 
cross  neutral  territory  in  the  neighbourhood 
of  Tabriz  on  her  way  to  attack  Turkey,  who 
has  uttered,  moreover,  no  word  of  protest 
against  the  late  Ukase  (of  mid-November) 
by  which  the  independent  rights  of  Finland 
have  been  finally  crushed — Britain,  I  say, 
need  talk  no  cant  about  Belgian  neutrality. 
Britain,  for  her  own  absolute  safety,  has 
always  required  and  still  requires  Belgian 
neutrality  to  be  respected.  And  that  by  itself 
is  a  sufficient,  and  the  most  honest,  reason. 
But  in  the  eyes  of  the  world  at  large  Ger- 
many's deliberate  and  determined  sacrifice 
of  Belgium,  simply  because  the  latter  stood 


THE   CASE   AGAINST   GERMANY      6i 

in  the  way  of  the  rapid  accomplishment  of 
her  warlike  designs  against  France  (and 
England),  can  never  be  condoned— little 
Belgium  who  had  never  harmed  or  offended 
Germany  in  any  way.  Add  to  this  her 
harsh  and  brutish  ill-treatment  of  the  Belgian 
civilian  people,  her  ravage  of  their  ancient 
buildings  and  works  of  art,  and  her  clearly 
expressed  intention  both  in  word  and  deed 
to  annex  their  territory  by  force  should  the 
fortunes  of  war  favour  her — all  these  facts, 
which  we  may  say  are  proven  beyond  the 
shadow  of  a  doubt,  form  a  most  serious 
indictment.  They  substantiate  the  charge 
that  Germany  by  acting  throughout  in  this 
high-handed  way  has  deeply  violated  the 
natural  laws  of  the  Comity  of  Nations,  which 
are  the  safeguards  of  Civilization,  and  they 
confirm  the  rightful  claim  of  Europe  to  sit 
in  judgment  on  her. 

I  say  nothing  at  the  moment  about  the 
charges  of  atrocities  committed  by  German 
troops,  partly  because  such  charges  are 
always  in  warfare  made  by  each  side  against 
the  other,  and  partly  because  their  veri- 
fication should  be  the  subject  of  a  world- 
inquiry  later  on.     It  may  be  said,  however. 


62  THE   HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

that  the  Belgian  and  French  Commissions  of 
inquiry  have  certainly  presented  material 
and  evidence  which  ought  to  be  investigated 
later — material  which  would  hardly  be 
credible  of  so  humane  and  cultured  a  people 
as  the  Germans,  were  it  not  for  the  fact, 
alluded  to  already,  of  such  severities  having 
been  deliberately  recommended  beforehand 
by  the  philosophical  writers,  military  and 
political,  who  have  during  the  last  half- 
century  moulded  German  public  opinion. 

England,  as  I  say,  is  in  no  position  herself 
to  sit  in  judgment  on  Germany  and  lecture 
her — much  as  she  undoubtedly  enjoys  doing 
so.  England's  long-standing  policy  of 
commercial  greed,  leading  to  political  grab 
in  every  part  of  the  world ;  her  infidelity 
in  late  years  towards  small  peoples,  like  the 
Boers  and  the  Persians ;  her  neglect  of 
treaty  obligations  and  silence  about  them 
when  they  do  not  suit  her ;  her  most  dubious 
alliance  with  a  military  despotism  like 
Russia :  all  render  it  impossible  for  her 
to  accuse  Germany.  The  extraordinary 
thing  is  that  in  the  face  of  such  prevari- 
cations as  these,  which  are  patent  to  the 
whole    world,    Britain    at    any    moment    of 


THE   CASE   AGAINST   GERMANY       63 

serious  crisis  always  comes  forward  with  the 
air  of  utmost  sincerity  and  in  an  almost 
saintly  pose  as  the  champion  of  political 
morality  !  How  is  it  ?  The  world  laughs 
and  talks  of  heuchlerei  and  cant  Britan- 
nique.  But  I  almost  think  (perhaps  I  stretch 
a  point  in  order  to  save  the  credit  of  my 
country)  that  the  real  cause  is  not  so 
much  British  hypocrisy  as  British  stupidity 
— stupidity  which  keeps  our  minds  in  water- 
tight compartments  and  prevents  us  per- 
ceiving how  confused  and  inconsistent  our 
own  judgments  are  and  how  insincere  they 
appear  to  our  neighbours.  At  any  rate, 
whether  the  cause  is  pure  hypocrisy  or  pure 
stupidity,  or  whether  a  Scotch  mixture  of 
these,  it  cannot  be  denied  that  its  result  is 
most   irritating  to  decent-minded   people. 

It  is  curious  how  a  certain  strain  or  vein 
of  temperament,  like  that  just  mentioned, 
will  run  through  a  nation's  whole  life,  and 
colour  its  actions  in  all  departments,  recog- 
nized and  commented  on  by  the  whole 
outside  world,  and  yet  remain  unobserved 
by  the  nation  itself. 

Every  one  who  has  known  the  Germans 
at  home — even  years  back — has  been  con- 


64  THE    HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

scious  of  a  certain  strain  in  the  Teutonic 
character  which  has  had  a  like  bearing  in 
the  German  national  life.  How  shall  I 
describe  it  ?  It  is  a  certain  want  of  tact, 
unperceptiveness — a  kind  of  overbearing 
simplicity  of  mind.  Whether  it  be  in  the 
train  or  the  hotel  or  the  private  house,  the 
German  does  not  always  seem  to  see  the 
personal  situation.  Whether  you  prefer  to 
talk  or  remain  silent,  whether  you  wish  the 
window  open  or  shut,  whether  you  desire  to 
partake  of  such  and  such  a  dish  or  whether 
you  don't — of  such  little  matters  he  (or  she) 
seems  unaware.  Perhaps  it  is  that  the  Teu- 
tonic mind  is  so  vigorous  that  it  overrides 
you  without  being  conscious  of  doing  so,  or 
that  it  is  so  convinced  of  its  own  rightness  ; 
or  perhaps  it  is  that  the  scientific  type  of 
mind,  depending  always  on  formulas  and 
statistics,  necessarily  loses  a  certain  finer 
quality.  Anyhow,  the  fact  remains  that 
sociable,  kindly,  gemiithlich  and  so  forth  as 
the  Germans  are,  there  is  a  lack  of  delicate 
touch  and  perception  about  them,  of  gentle 
manners,  and  a  certain  insensitiveness  to  the 
opinion  of  those  with  whom  they  have  to 
deal.      The   strain   may  not   be   without   its 


THE   CASE   AGAINST   GERMANY       65 

useful  bearings  in  the  direction  of  strength 
and  veracity,  but  it  runs  curiously  through 
the  national  life,  and  colours  deeply,  not  only 
the  domestic  and  social  relations  of  the 
people  but  their  foreign  politics  also,  and 
even  their  war  tactics  and  strategy. 

I  have  spoken  before  of  the  political 
ignorance  of  the  German  mass -people, 
which,  dating  from  years  back,  caused 
them  to  be  easily  led  by  their  empire- 
building  philosophers  to  a  certain  very 
dangerous  pinnacle  of  ambition,  and  there 
tempted.  The  same  want  of  perception  of 
how  their  actions  would  be  viewed  by  the 
world  in  general  caused  the  Government  to 
act  in  the  most  egregiously  high-handed 
manner  in  the  matter  of  the  precipitation  and 
declaration  of  the  war  itself,  and  subse- 
quently likewise  in  the  ruthless  invasion  of 
Belgium  and  treatment  of  her  people  and 
her  cities.  The  want  of  discernment  of  what 
was  going  on  outside  the  sphere  of  her  own 
psychology  led  her  into  fatal  delusions  as 
to  the  attitude  of  England,  of  Ireland,  of 
Belgium,  Italy,  India,  and  so  forth.  It 
caused  her  generals  to  miscalculate  and 
seriously  under-estimate  the  strategic  forces 

S 


66  THE   HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

opposed  to  them,  both  in  France  and  Russia  ; 
and  in  actual  battles  it  has  caused  them  to 
adopt,  with  disastrous  results,  tactics  which 
were  foolishly  inspired  by  contempt  of  the 
enemy.  Without  insisting  too  much  on  the 
stories  of  atrocities — which  are  still  to  a 
certain  extent  sub  judice — it  does  rather 
appear  that  even  those  excesses  which  the 
Commissions  of  inquiry  have  reported  (and 
which  occurred,  be  it  said,  chiejfly  in  the 
early  days  of  the  campaign)  were  due  to  an 
intoxication,  not  merely  of  champagne  but 
of  excited  self-glorification  and  blindness  to 
the  human  rights  of  peoples  at  least  as 
brave  as  themselves.' 

However  that  last  point  may  be,  it  is 
certainly  curious  to  think  how — whether  it 
be  in  the  case  of  the  German  or  the  English 
or  any  other  people — a  vein  of  temperament 
or  character  may  decide  a  nation's  fate  or 
colour  its  history  quite  as  much  as  or  even 
more  than  matters  of  wealth  and  armament. 

'  There  may  possibly  be  found  another  explanation  of 
these  excesses — namely,  in  the  galling  strictness  of  the 
Prussian  military  regime.  After  years  and  years  of  mono- 
tonously regulated  and  ofificial  lives,  it  may  be  that  to  both 
officers  and  men,  in  their  different  ways,  orgies  of  one  kind 
or  another  came  as  an  almost  inevitable  reaction. 


THE   CASE   AGAINST   GERMANY       67 

Personally  one  feels  sorry  for  the  great 
and  admirable  German  people — though  I  do 
not  suppose  it  will  matter  to  them  whether 
one  feels  sorry  or  not  !  And  I  look  forward 
to  the  day  when  there  will  come  a  better 
understanding  between  them  and  ourselves — 
better  perhaps  than  has  ever  been  before 
—when  we  shall  forgive  them  their  sins 
against  us,  and  they  will  forgive  us  our  sins 
against  them,  one  of  which  certainly  is  our 
meanness  and  shopkeeperiness  in  rejoicing 
in  the  war  as  a  means  of  "  collaring  their 
trade."  I  feel  sure  that  the  German  mass- 
people  will  wake  up  one  day  to  the  know- 
ledge that  they  have  been  grossly  betrayed 
at  home,  not  only  by  Prussian  miUtarism  but 
by  pan-German  commercial  philosophy  and 
bunkum,  as  well  as  by  their  own  inattention 
to,  and  consequent  ignorance  of,  political 
affairs.  And  I  hope  they  will  wake  up  to 
the  conviction  that  Destiny  and  the  gods 
in  this  matter  are  after  all  bringing  them 
to  a  conclusion  and  a  consummation  far  finer 
than  anything  they  have  perhaps  imagined 
for  themselves.  If,  indeed,  when  the  war  is 
over,  they  are  fortunate  enough  to  be  com- 
pelled by  the  terms  of  settlement  to  abandon 


68  THE   HEALING  OF   NATIONS 

their  Army  and  Navy — or  all  but  the 
merest  residue  of  these — the  consequences 
undoubtedly  will  be  that,  freed  from  the 
frightful  burdens  which  the  upkeep  of  these 
entails,  they  will  romp  away  over  the  world 
through  an  era  of  unexampled  prosperity 
and  influence.  Their  science,  liberated, 
will  give  them  the  lead  in  many  arts  and 
industries ;  their  philosophy  and  literature, 
no  longer  crippled  by  national  vanities, 
will  rise  to  the  splendid  world-level  of 
former  days ;  their  colonizing  enterprise, 
unhindered  by  conscriptionist  vetoes,  will 
carry  them  far  and  wide  over  the  globe ; 
and  even  their  trade  will  find  that  without 
fortified  seaports  and  tariff  walls  it  will,  in 
these  days  of  universal  movement  and  inter- 
communication, do  fully  as  well  as,  if  not 
much  better  than,  ever  it  did  before.  In 
that  day,  however,  let  us  hope  that — the  more 
communal  conception  of  public  life  having 
prevailed  and  come  to  its  own — the  success 
of  Trade,  among  any  nation  or  people, 
will  no  longer  mean  the  successful  manu- 
facture of  a  dominant  and  vulgar  class, 
but  the  real  prosperity  and  welfare  of  the 
whole  nation,  including  all  classes. 


THE   CASE   AGAINST   GERMANY       69 

And  in  that  day,  possibly,  the  other 
nations,  witnessing  the  extraordinary  pros- 
perity and  success  of  that  one  which  has 
abandoned  armaments  and  Kruppisms,  will — 
if  they  have  a  grain  of  sense  left  in  theim 
— follow  suit  and,  voluntarily  divesting  them- 
selves too  of  their  ancient  armour,  give  up 
the  foolishness  of  national  enmities  and 
jealousies,  and  adopt  the  attitude  of  humanity 
and  peace,  which  alone  can  be  the  worthy 
and  sensible  attitude  for  us  little  mortals, 
when  we  shall  have  arrived  at  years  of 
discretion  upon  the  earth. 

[Just  after  writing  the  above  I  received 
the  following  remarks  in  a  letter  of  a  friend 
from  South  America,  which  may  be  worth 
reprinting.  He  says :  "  In  spite  of  the 
events  of  18 15  and  1870,  French  'culture' 
is  supreme  to-day  over  all  South  America. 
South  America  is  a  suburb  of  Paris,  and 
French  culture  has  won  its  triumphs  wholly 
irrespective  of  the  defeat  of  French  arms. 
Therefore  I  incline  to  think  that  true  German 
culture  in  science  and  music  will  gain  rather 
than  lose  by  the  destruction  of  German  arms . 
Not  only  will  that  nation  cease  to  spend  its 


70  THE   HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

time  writing  dull  military  books,  but  other 
nations  will  be  more  likely  to  appreciate 
what  there  is  in  German  thought  and  culture 
when  this  is  no  longer  offered  us  at  the 
point  of  the  bayonet  1  German  comtnerce 
in  South  America  has  suffered  rather  than 
gained  by  talk  of  '  shining  armour.'  And  the 
poet,  scientist  and  business  man  will  gain 
rather  than  lose  if  no  longer  connected  with 
Potsdam."] 


V 

THE    CASE    FOR    GERMANY, 

'Having  put  in  the  last  chapter  some  of  the 
points  which  seem  to  throw  the  immediate 
blame  of  the  war  on  Germany,  it  would  be 
only  fair  in  the  present  chapter  to  show  how 
in  the  long  run  and  looking  to  the  general 
European  situation  to-day  as  well  as  to  the 
history  of  Germany  in  the  past,  the  war  had 
become  inevitable,  and  in  a  sense  necessary, 
as  a  stage  in  the  evolution  of  European 
politics. 

After  the  frightful  devastation  of  Germany 
by  the  religious  dissensions  of  the  early  part 
of  the  seventeenth  century  and  the  Thirty 
Years  ,War,  it  fell  to  Frederick  the  Great, 
not  only  to  lay  a  firm  foundation  for  the 
Prussian  State  but  to  elevate  it  definitely 
as   a  rival   to   Austria   in   the   leadership   of 

Germany.        Thenceforth    Prussia    grew    in 

71 


72  THE   HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

power  and  influence,  and  became  the  nucleus 
of  a  new  Germany.  It  would  almost  seem 
that  things  could  not  well  have  been  other- 
wise. Germany  was  seeking  for  a  new  root 
from  which  to  grow.  Clerical  and  ultra- 
Catholic  Austria  was  of  no  use  for  this  pur- 
pose. Bavaria  was  under  the  influence  of 
France.  Lutheran  Prussia  attracted  the  best 
elements  of  the  Teutonic  mind.  It  seems 
strange,  perhaps,  that  the  sandy  wastes  of  the 
North-East,  and  its  rather  arid,  dour  popu- 
lation, should  have  become  the  centre  of 
growth  for  the  new  German  nation,  con- 
sidering the  latter's  possession  of  its  own 
rich  and  vital  characteristics,  and  its  own 
fertile  and  beautiful  lands;  but  so  it  was. 
Perhaps  the  general  German  folk,  with  their 
speculative,  easygoing,  almost  sentimental 
tendencies,  needed  this  hard  nucleus  of 
Prussianism — and  its  matter-of-fact,  organ- 
izing type  of  ability — to  crystallize  round. 
The  Napoleonic  wars  shattered  the  old 
order  of  society,  and  spread  over  Europe  the 
seeds  of  all  sorts  of  new  ideas,  in  the 
direction  of  nationality,  republicanism,  and 
so  forth.  Fichte,  stirred  by  Napoleon's 
victory  at  Jena  (Fichte's  birthplace)  and  the 


THE   CASE   FOR   GERMANY  73 

consequent  disaster  to  his  own  people,  wrote 
his  Addresses  to  the  German  Nation,  pleading 
eloquently  for  a  "  national  regeneration." 
'He,  like  Vom  Stein,  Treitschke,  and  many 
others  in  their  time,  came  to  Berlin  and 
established  himself  there  as  in  the  centre  of 
a  new  national  activity.  Vom  Stein,  about 
the  same  time,  carried  out  the  magnificent 
and  democratic  work  by  which  he  established 
on  Napoleonic  lines  (and  much  to  Napo- 
leon's own  chagrin)  the  outlines  of  a  great 
and  free  and  federated  Germany.  Carl  von 
Clausewitz  did  in  the  military  world  much 
what  Stein  did  in  the  civil  world.  He 
formulated  the  strategical  methods  and 
teachings  of  Napoleon,  and  in  his  book 
Vom  Kr'wg  (published  1832)  not  only  out- 
hned  a  greater  military  Germany,  but  laid 
the  basis,  it  has  been  said,  of  all  serious 
study  in  the  art  of  war.  Vom  Stein  and 
Clausewitz  died  in  the  same  year,  1831. 
In  1834  Heinrich  von  Treitschke  was 
born. 

The  three  Hohenzollern  kings,  all  named 
Frederick  -William,  who  reigned  from  the 
death  of  Frederick  the  Great  (1786)  to  the 
accession  of  William  I  (  1861)  did  not  count 


74  THE    HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

much  personally.  The  first  and  third  of 
those  mentioned  were  decidedly  weak- 
minded,  and  the  third  towards  the  close 
of  his  reign  became  insane.  But  the  ideas 
already  initiated  in  Germany  continued  to 
expand.  The  Zollverein  was  established,  the 
Teutonic  Federation  became  closer,  and  the 
lead  of  Prussia  more  decided.  With  the  joint 
efforts  of  William  I  and  Bismarck  the  policy 
became  more  governmental,  more  positive, 
and  more  deliberate — the  policy  of  consoli- 
dation and  of  aggrandisement ;  and  with 
this  definite  programme  in  view,  Bismarck 
engineered  the  three  wars  of  1864,  1866, 
and  1870,  against  Denmark,  Austria,  and 
France.  They  all  three  had  the  effect  of 
confirming  the  military  power  of  Prussia. 
The  first  war  gave  her  a  much  desired 
increase  of  access  to  the  North  Sea ;  the 
second  led  to  the  treaty  with  Austria,  and 
ultimately  to  the  formation  of  the  Triple 
Alliance ;  the  third  ended  in  the  definite 
establishment  of  the  Prussian  hegemony,  the 
crowning  of  William  I  as  Emperor,  and  the 
union  and  consolidation  of  all  the  German 
States  under  him  ;  but  alas  !  it  left  a  seed 
of  evil  in  the  wresting  of  Alsace-Lorraine 


THE   CASE   FOR   GERMANY  75 

from  France.  For  France  never  forgave 
this.  Bismarck  and  Moltke  knew  she  would 
not  forgive,  and  were  sorely  tempted  to 
engineer  a  second  war  which  should  utterly 
disable  her;  but  this  war  never  came  off. 
The  seed  of  Revenge,  however,  remained 
with  France,  and  the  seed  of  Fear  with  Ger- 
many ;  and  these  two  things  were  destined 
to  lead  to  a  harvest  of  disaster. 

In  1866  Treitschke  came  to  Berlin. 
Though  Saxon  by  birth,  he  became  ultra- 
Prussian  in  sympathy  and  temperament. 
Somewhat  deaf,  and  by  no  means  yielding 
or  facile  in  temper,  he  was  not  cut  out  for 
a  political  career.  But  politics  were  his 
interest ;  his  lectures  on  history  were  suc- 
cessful at  Leipzig  and  had  still  more  scope 
at  Berlin.  He  became  the  strongest  of 
German  Unionists,  and  with  a  keen  but 
somewhat  narrow  mind  took  an  absolute 
pleasure  in  attacking  every  movement  or 
body  of  people  that  seemed  to  him  in  any 
way  to  stand  in  the  path  of  Germany's 
advancement,  or  not  to  assist  in  her  con- 
solidation. Thus  he  poured  out  his  wrath 
in  turn  on  Saxony  (his  own  land)  and  on 
Hanover,  on  the  Poles,  the  Socialists,  and  the 


76  THE    HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

Catholics,  and  ultimately  in  his  later  years 
on  Britain.' 

He  conceived,  following'  the  lines  of  the 
Prussian  tradition,  that  Germany  had  a  great 
military  mission  to  fulfil.  Her  immense 
energy  and  power,  which  had  bulked  so  large 
in  the  early  history  of  Europe,  and  which 
had  been  so  sadly  scattered  during  the 
religious  wars,  was  now  to  come  to  its  own 
again.  She  was  to  make  for  herself  a  great 
place  in  Europe,  and  to  expand  in  colonies 
over  the  world.  It  was  a  pleasing  and 
natural  ambition,  and  the  expression  of 
it  gave  a  great  vogue  and  popularity  to 
iTreitschke's  lectures.  The  idea  was  enor- 
mously reinforced  by  the  cause  which  I  have 
already  mentioned  and  dwelt  upon — the 
growth  of  the  commercial  interest  in  Ger- 
many. From  1870  onwards  this  growth  was 
huge  and  phenomenal.  In  a  comparatively 
short  time  a  whole  new  social  class  sprang 
up   in   the   land,    and   a   whole   new   public 

'  "A  German,"  he  said,  "could  not  live  long  in 
the  atmosphere  of  England — an  atmosphere  of  sham, 
prudery,  conventionality,  and  hollowness "  !  See  article 
on  "  Treitschke,"  by  W.  H.  Dawson,  in  the  Nineteenth 
CentJiry  for  January  191 5. 


THE   CASE   FOR   GERMANY  Tj 

opinion.  If  expansion  from  the  point  of  view 
of  Junker  ambition  had  been  desirable 
before,  the  same  from  the  point  of  view  of 
the  financial  and  trading  classes  was  doubly 
so  now.  If  a  military  irruption  into  the 
politics  of  the  world  was  favoured  before, 
it  was  clamoured  for  now  when  a  powerful 
class  had  arisen  which  not  only  called  the 
tune  but  could  pay  the  piper. 

Thus  by  the  combination  of  military  and 
commercial  interests  and  entanglements  the 
web  of  Destiny  was  woven  and  Germany  was 
hurried  along  a  path  which— though  no 
definite  war  was  yet  in  sight — was  certain 
to  lead  to  war.  The  general  military 
programme  of  Treitschke,  the  conviction  that 
force  and  force  alone  could  give  his  country 
her  rightful  place  in  the  world,  was  more  and 
more  cordially  adopted.  In  a  sense  this  was 
a  perfectly  natural  and  logical  programme, 
and  amid  the  surrounding  European  con- 
ditions excusable — as  I  shall  point  out 
presently.  But  before  long  it  became  a 
weird  enthusiasm,  almost  an  obsession.  It 
was  taken  up  over  the  land,  and  repeated 
in  a  thousand  books  and  on  as  many  plat- 
forms.      One    of    these    propagandists    was 


78  THE    HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

General  von  Bernhardi,  who  entered  in  more 
detail  into  the  technical  and  strategical 
aspects  of  the  programme.  The  rude  and 
almost  brutal  frankness  of  both  writers  may 
be  admired  ;  but  the  want  of  real  depth  and 
breadth  of  view  cannot  be  concealed  and 
must  be  deplored.  The  arguments  in  favour 
of  force,  of  unscrupulousness,  of  terrorism 
are— especially  in  Bernhardi  i— casuistical  to 
a  degree.  They  are  those  of  a  man  who  is 
determined  to  press  his  country  into  war  at  all 
costs,  and  who  will  use  any  kind  of  logic 
as  long  as  it  will  lead  in  his  direction.  The 
whole  movement — largely  made  possible  by 
the  political  ignorance  of  the  mass -people, 
of  which  I  have  spoken  in  a  former  chapter 
—culminated  in  an  extraordinary  national 
fever  of  ambition  ;  and  in  the  announcement 
of  schemes  for  the  Germanization  of  the 
world,  almost  juvenile  in  the  want  of 
experience  and  the  sense  of  proportion  which 
they  display.  It  would  not  be  fair  to  take 
one  writer  as  conclusive  ;  but  as  a  specimen 
of  the  kind  of  thing  we  may  quote  the? 
following  extract   (given  by  Mr.   H.   A.   L'.; 

'  The   influence,    however,    of  Bernhardi    in    his    own 
country  has  been  somewhat  exaggerated  in  England. 


THE   CASE   FOR   GERMANY  79 

Fisher,  the  Oxford  historian,  in  his  able 
brochure  The  War:  Its  Causes  and  Issues) 
from  the  writings  of  Bronsart  von  Schel- 
lendorf :  "  Do  not  let  us  forget  the  civi- 
lizing task  which  the  decrees  of  Providence 
have  assigned  to  us.  Just  as  Prussia  was 
destined  to  be  the  nucleus  of  Germany,  so 
the  regenerated  Germany  shall  be  the  nucleus 
of  a  future  Empire  of  the  -West.  And  in 
order  that  no  one  shall  be  left  in  doubt,  we 
proclaim  from  henceforth  that  our  continental 
nation  has  a  right  to  the  sea,  not  only  to 
the  North  Sea,  but  to  the  Mediterranean  and 
Atlantic.  Hence  we  intend  to  absorb  one 
after  another  all  the  provinces  which  neigh- 
bour on  Prussia.  We  will  successively  annex 
Denmark,  Holland,  Belgium,  Northern  Swit- 
zerland, then  Trieste  and  Venice,  finally 
Northern  France  from  the  Sambre  to  the 
Loire.  This  programme  we  fearlessly  pro- 
nounce. It  is  not  the  work  of  a  madman. 
The  Empire  we  intend  to  found  will  be  no 
Utopia.  We  have  ready  to  our  hands  the 
means  of  founding  it,  and  no  coalition  in  the 
world  can  stop  us." 

Bronsart  von  Schellendorf  f  1832-91)  was 
one  of  the  Prussian  Generals  who  negotiated 


80  THE   HEALING   OF   NATIONS    > 

the  surrender  of  the  French  at  Sedan.  He 
became  Chief  of  the  Staff,  and  War  Minister 
(1883-9),  ^''^^  wrote  on  Tactics,  etc. 
His  above  utterance,  therefore,  cannot  be 
neglected  as  that  of  an  irresponsible  person. 

There  is,  as  I  have  already  had  occasion 
to  say,  a  certain  easygoing  absurdity  in  the 
habit  we  commonly  have  of  talking  of 
nations — "  Germany,"  "  France,"  "  England," 
and  so  forth — as  if  they  were  simple  and 
plainly  responsible  persons  or  individuals, 
when  all  the  time  we  know  perfectly  well 
that  they  are  more  like  huge  whirlpools  of 
humanity  caused  by  the  impact  and  collision 
of  countless  and  often  opposing  currents 
flowing  together  from  various  directions. 
Yet  there  is  this  point  of  incontestable 
similarity  between  nations  and  individual 
persons,  that  both  occasionally  go  mad  ! 
If  Germany  was  afflicted  by  a  kind  of 
madness  or  divine  dementia  previous  to  the 
present  war,  Britain  can  by  no  means  throw 
that  in  her  teeth,  for  Britain  certainly  went 
mad  over  Mafeking ;  and  it  was  sheer 
madness  that  in  1870  threw  the  people  of 
France  and   Napoleon   HI— utterly  unready 


THE   CASE   FOR   GERMANY  8i 

for  war  as  they  were,  and  over  a  most 
trifling  quarrel — into  the  arms  of  Bismarck 
for  the  fulfilment  of  his  schemes. 

But  that  some  sort  of  madness  did,  in 
consequence  of  the  above-mentioned  circum- 
stances, seize  the  German  people  shortly 
before  the  outbreak  of  the  present  war  we 
can  hardly  doubt,  though  (remembering  the 
proverb)  we  must  not  put  the  blame  for 
that  on  her,  but  on  the  gods.  It  was  a 
heady  intoxication,  caused  largely,  I  believe, 
by  that  era  of  unexampled  commercial  pros- 
perity following  upon  a  period  of  great 
political  and  military  expansion,  and  con- 
firmed by  the  direct  incitement  of  the  military 
and  political  teachers  I  have  mentioned.  All 
these  things,  acting  on  a  people  unskilled 
in  politics — of  whom  Bernhardi  himself  says 
"  We  are  a  non-political  people  "  ^ — had 
their  natural  effect.  But  it  seems  part  of 
the  irony  of  fate  that  at  this  very  juncture 
Germany  should  have  fallen  under  the 
influence  of  a  man  who  of  all  the  world  was 
perhaps    least    fitted    to    guide    her    steadily 

^  It  seems  that  the  same  remark  is  made  about  the 
Germans  in  the  U.S.A.,  that  they  take  little  interest  in 
politics  there. 

6 


82  THE   HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

through  a  difficult  crisis.  "  We  all  know, 
the  Kaiser,"  says  Mr.  Fisher,  "  the  most 
amazing  and  amusing  figure  on  the  great 
stage  of  politics.  The  outlines  of  his 
character  are  familiar  to  everybody,  for  his 
whole  life  is  spent  in  the  full  glare  of 
publicity.  »We  know  his  impulsiveness,  his 
naivete,  his  heady  fits  of  wild  passion,  his 
spacious  curiosity  and  quick  grasp  of  detail, 
his  portentous  lack  of  humour  and  delicacy, 
his  childish  vanity  and  domineering  will. 
A  character  so  romantic,  spontaneous,  and 
robust  must  always  be  a  favourite  with  the 
British  people,  who,  were  his  lunacies  less 
formidable,  would  regard  him  as  the  most 
delectable  burlesque  of  the  age." 

However  the  British  generally  may  regard 
him,  it  is  certain  that  the  German  nation 
accepted  him  as  their  acclaimed  leader. 
Clever,  good-looking,  versatile,  imperious, 
fond  of  the  romantic  pose,  -Wilhelm  was 
exactly  the  hero  in  shining  armour  that 
would  capture  the  enthusiasm  of  this  innocent 
people.  They  idolized  him.  And  it  is 
possible  that  their  quick  response  confirmed 
him  in  his  rather  generous  estimate  of  his 
own  capabilities.       He  dismissed  Bismarck 


THE   CASE   FOR   GERMANY  83 

and  became  his  own  Foreign  Secretary, 
and  entered  upon  a  perilous  career  as 
Imperial  politician,  under  the  segis  of  God 
and  the  great  tradition  of  the  HohenzoUerns, 
a  career  made  all  the  more  perilous  by  his 
constant  change  of  role  and  his  real  uncer- 
tainty as  to  his  own  mind.  His  "  seven 
thousand  speeches  and  three  hundred 
uniforms  "  were  only  the  numerous  and 
really  emblematic  disguises  of  a  character 
unable  to  concentrate  persistently  and 
effectively  on  any  one  settled  object.  With 
a  kind  of  theatrical  sincerity  he  made 
successive  public  appearances  as  War  Lord 
or  William  the  Peaceful,  as  Artist,  Poet, 
Architect,  Biblical  Critic,  Preacher,  Commer- 
cial Magnate,  Generahssimo  of  land  forces 
and  Creator  of  a  World  Navy ;  and  with 
Whitman  he  might  well  have  said,  "  I 
can  resist  anything  better  than  my  own 
diversity." 

If  Wilhelm  II  was  popular  (as  he  was) 
among  his  own  mass-people,  it  may  well  be 
guessed  that  he  was  a  perfect  terror  to 
his  own  political  advisers  and  generals. 
Undoubtedly  a  large  share  of  responsibility 
for  the  failure  of  German  diplomacy  before 


84  THE    HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

the  war,  and  of  German  strategy  during  the 
war,  must  be  laid  to  the  account  of  his 
ever-changing  plans  and  ill-judged  inter- 
ferences. It  is  difficult,  indeed,  to  imagine 
a  character  more  dangerous  as  a  great 
nation's  leader.  But  out  of  dangers  great 
things  do  often  arise.  A  kind  of  fatality,  as 
I  have  said,  has  enveloped  the  whole  situation, 
and  still  leads  on  to  new  and  pregnant 
evolutions  for  the  German  people  and  for 
the  whole  world.  Germany  will  in  the  end 
be  justified,  but  in  a  way  far  different  from 
what  she  imagined. 

Up  to  the  period  of  Germany's  rising  com- 
mercial prosperity  Germany  and  England 
had  been  on  fairly  friendly  terms.  There 
was  no  particular  cause  of  difference  between 
them.  But  when  Commercial  and  Colonial 
expansion  became  a  definite  and  avowed 
object  of  the  former's  policy,  she  found, 
whereso  she  might  look,  that  Britain  was 
there,  in  the  way — "  everywhere  British 
colonies,  British  coaling  stations,  and  floating 
over  a  fifth  of  the  globe  the  British  flag." 
Could  anything  be  more  exasperating? 
'And    these    "  absent-minded  .  beggars  "    the 


THE   CASE   FOR   GERMANY  85 

English,  without  any  forethought  or  science 
or  design,  without  Prussian  organization  or 
Prussian  bureaucracy  and  statecraft,  had 
simply  walked  into  this  huge  inheritance 
without  knowing  what  they  were  doing  1  It 
certainly  was  most  provoking.  But  what 
England  had  done  why  should  not  Germany 
do — and  do  it  indeed  much  better,  with  due 
science  and  method?  Britain  had  shown 
no  scruple  in  appropriating  a  fifth  part  of  the 
globe,  and  dealing  summarily  with  her  oppo- 
nents, whether  savage  or  civilized ;  why 
should  Germany  show  scruple? 

And  it  must  be  confessed  that  here 
Germany  had  a  very  good  case.  Imitation 
is  the  sincerest  form  of  flattery.  And  if 
Germany,  approving  Britain's  example,  could 
only  show  herself  strong  enough  to  imitate 
it  in  actual  fact,  Britain  at  least  could  not 
blame  her.  Besides,  in  her  internal  industrial 
development  Germany  was  already  showing 
her  equality  with  England.  In  her  iron 
and  steel  manufactures,  her  agricultural 
machines,  her  cutlery,  her  armament  works, 
her  glass  works,  her  aniline  dyes,  her  toys, 
and  her  production  of  a  thousand  and  one 
articles  (like  lamps)  of  household  use,  she 


86  THE    HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

was  showing  a  splendid  record — better  in 
some  ways  than  England.  For  while 
England  was  losing  ground,  Germany  was 
gaining  all  the  time .  England  was  becoming 
degenerate  and  lacking  in  enterprise.  The 
Zeiss  glassworks  at  Jena  have  now  become 
the  centre  of  the  optical -glass  industry  of  the 
world.  Carl  Zeiss,  the  founder,  tried  hard 
at  one  time  to  get  the  English  glass -makers 
to  turn  out  a  special  glass  for  his  purpose, 
with  very  high  refractive  index.  They 
would  not  trouble  about  it.  Zeiss  conse- 
quently was  forced  to  take  the  matter  up 
himself,  succeeded  at  last  in  getting  such 
glass  made  in  Germany,  and  "  collared  "  the 
trade.  The  same  happened  in  other  depart- 
ments. 

A  certain  amount  of  friction  arose.  The 
Germans  at  one  time,  knowing  the  English 
reputation  for  cutlery,  marked  their  knives 
and  razors  as  "  made  in  Scheffield."  The 
English  retaliated  in  what  seemed  an  insult- 
ing way,  by  marking  the  Fatherland's  goods 
as  "  made  in  Germany."  With  Germany's 
success,  commercial  jealousy  between  the 
two  nations  (founded  on  the  utterly  mistaken 
but   popular  notion   that  the  financial  pros- 


THE   CASE   FOR   GERMANY  87 

perity  of  the  country  you  trade  with  is 
inimical  to  your  own  prosperity)  began  to 
increase.  On  the  German  side  it  was  some- 
what bitter.  On  the  Enghsh  side,  though 
not  so  bitter,  it  was  aggravated  by  the  really 
shameful  ignorance  prevailing  in  this  country 
with  regard  to  things  German^  and  the  almost 
entire  neglect  of  the  German  tongue  in  our 
schools  and  universities  and  among  our 
literary  folk.  As  an  expression  (though  one 
hopes  exceptional)  of  commercial  jealousy 
on  our  side  I  may  quote  a  passage  from  a 
letter  from  a  business  friend  of  mine  in 
Lancashire.  He  says  :  "I  remember  about 
a  fortnight  before  the  war  broke  out  with 
Germany  having  a  conversation  with  a  busi- 
ness man  in  Manchester,  and  he  said  to  me 
that  we  most  certainly  ought  to  join  in  with 
the  other  nations  and  sweep  the  Germans  off, 
the  face  of  the  earth  ;  I  asked  him  why,  and 
his  only  answer  was,  '  Look  at  the  figures  of 
Germany s  exports;  they  are  almost  as  high 
as  ours  !  '  All  he  had  against  them  was  their 
enterprise— commercial  jealousy." 

On  the  other  hand,  the  head  of  a  large 
warehouse  told  me  only  a  few  days  later  that 
when  travelling  in  Germany  for  his  firm  some 


88  THE    HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

fifteen  years  ago  he  had  a  conversation  with 
a  German,  in  the  course  of  which  he  (the 
Englishman)  said:  "I  find  your  people  so 
obliging  and  friendly  that  I  think  surely 
whatever  little  differences  there  are  between 
us  as  nations  v^^ill  be  dispelled  by  closer  inter- 
course, and  so  all  danger  of  war  will  pass 
away."  "  No,"  replied  the  German,  "  you 
are  quite  mistaken.  You  and  I  are  friendly  ; 
but  that  is  only  as  individuals.  As  nations 
we  shall  never  rest  till  we  have  war.  The 
English  nation  may  well  be  contented 
because  they  have  already  got  all  the  good 
things  of  the  Earth — their  trade,  their  ports, 
their  colonies  ;  but  Germany  will  not  allow 
this  to  go  on  for  ever.  She  will  fight  for  her 
rightful  position  in  the  world  ;  she  will  chal- 
lenge England's  mercantile  supremacy.  She 
will  have  to  do  so,  and  she  will  not  fail."' 

Thus  the  plot  thickened ;  the  entangle- 
ment increased.  The  Boer  War  roused  ill- 
feeling  between  England  and  Germany.  The 
German  Navy  Bill  followed  in  1900,  and 
the     Kaiser     announced     his     intention     of 

'  This  attitude  is  exactly  corroborated  by  Herr  Maxi- 
milian Harden's  manifesto,  originally  published  in  Die 
Ztikunft,  and  lately  reprinted  in  the  Ntw  York  Times. 


THE   CASE   FOR   GERMANY  89 

creating  a  sea -power  the  equal  of  any  in 
the  world.  Britain  of  course  replied  with 
her  Navy  Bills  ;  and  the  two  countries  were 
committed  to  a  mad  race  of  armaments .  The 
whole  of  Europe  stood  by  anxious.  Fear 
and  Greed,  the  two  meanest  of  human 
passions,  ruled  everywhere.  Fear  of  a 
militarist  Germany  began  to  loom  large 
upon  the  more  pacific  States  of  Europe. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  fatality  of  Alsace- 
Lorraine  loomed  in  Germany,  full  of  fore- 
bodings of  revenge.  France  had  found  a 
friend  in  Russia — a  sinister  alliance.  Britain, 
convinced  that  trouble  was  at  hand,  came 
to  an  understanding  with  France  in  1904 
and  with  Russia  in  1907.  The  Triple 
Entente  was  born  as  a  set-off  against  the 
Triple  Alliance.  The  Agadir  incident  in 
1 9 1 1  betrayed  the  purely  commercial  nature 
of  the  designs  of  the  four  Powers  concerned 
— France,  Spain,  England,  and  Germany — 
and  a  war  over  the  corpse  of  Morocco  was 
only  narrowly  avoided.  Germany  felt  quite 
naturally  that  she  was  the  victim  of  a  plot, 
and  thenceforth  was  alternately  convulsed  by 
mad  Ambition  and  haunted  by  a  lurking 
Terror. 


90  THE   HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

And  now  we  come  to  the  last  act  of  the 
great  drama.  So  far  the  relations  of 
Germany  with  Russia  had  not  been  strained. 
If  there  was  any  fear  of  Russia,  it  was  quite 
in  the  background.  The  Junkers — them- 
selves half  Slavs — had  supplied  a  large 
number  of  the  Russian  officials,  men  like 
Plehve  and  Klingenberg  ;  the  Russian 
bureaucracy  was  founded  on  and  followed 
the  methods  of  the  German.  The  Japanese 
•War  called  Russia's  attention  away  to  another 
part  of  the  world,  and  at  the  same  time 
exposed  her  weakness.  But  if  Germany  was 
not  troubled  about  Russia,  a  different  senti- 
ment was  growing  up  in  Russia  itself.  The 
people  there  were  beginning  to  hate  the 
official  German  influence  and  its  hard 
atmosphere  of  militarism,  so  foreign  to  the 
Russian  mind.  They  were  looking  more  and 
more  to  France.  Bismarck  had  made 
a  great  mistake  in  the  Treaty  of  Berlin — 
a  mistake  which  he  afterwards  fully  recog- 
nized and  regretted.  He  had  used  the 
treaty  to  damage  and  weaken  Russia,  and 
had  so  thrown  Russia  into  the  arms  of 
France. 

A  strange  Nemesis  was  preparing.     The 


THE   CASE   FOR   GERMANY  91 

programme  of  German  expansion — natural 
enough  in  itself,  but  engineered  by  Prussia 
during  all  this  long  period  with  that  kind 
of  blind  haughtiness  and  overbearing  as- 
surance which  indeed  is  a  "  tempting  of 
Providence  "—had  so  far  not  concerned 
itself  much  about  Muscovite  policy  ;  but  now 
there  arose  a  sudden  fear  of  danger  in 
that  quarter.  Hitherto  the  main  German 
"  objective  "  had  undoubtedly  been  England 
and  France,  Belgium  and  Holland — the 
westward  movement  towards  the  Atlantic  and 
the  great  world.  But  now  all  unexpectedly, 
or  at  any  rate  with  dramatic  swiftness,  Russia 
appeared  on  the  scenes,  and  there  was  a 
volte  face  towards  the  East.  The  Balkan 
Wars  of  191  2  and  19 13  broke  out.  What- 
ever simmerings  of  hostility  there  may  have 
been  between  Germany  and  Russia  before, 
the  relations  of  the  two  now  became  seriously 
strained.  The  Balkan  League,  formed 
under  Russian  influence,  was  nominally 
directed  against  Turkey ;  but  it  was  also 
a  threat  to  Austria.  It  provided  a  powerful 
backing  to  the  Servian  agitation,  it  was  a 
step  towards  the  dissolution  of  Austria,  and 
it  decisively  closed  the  door  on  Germany's 


92  THE   HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

ambition  to  reach  Salonika  and  to  obtain  a 
direct  connection  with  the  Baghdad  Railway. 
Germany  and  Austria  all  at  once  found 
themselves  isolated  in  the  midst  of  Europe, 
with  Russia,  Servia,  France,  and  England 
hostile  on  every  side.  It  was  indeed  a  tragic 
situation,  and  all  the  more  so  when  viewed 
as  the  sorry  outcome  and  culmination  of  a 
hundred  years  of  Prussian  diplomacy  and 
statecraft. 

•Why  under  these  circumstances  Austria 
(with  Germany  of  course  behind  her)  should 
have  dictated  most  insulting  terms  to  Servia, 
and  then  refused  to  accept  Servia's  most 
humble  apology,  is  difficult  to  understand. 
The  only  natural  explanation  is  that  the 
Germanic  Powers  on  the  whole  thought  it 
best,  even  as  matters  stood,  to  precipitate 
war ;  that  notwithstanding  all  the  com- 
plications, they  thoug;ht  that  the  long- 
prepared  -  for  hour  had  come.  The 
German  White  Book  puts  the  matter  as  a 
mere  necessity  of  self-defence.  "  Had  the 
Servians  been  allowed,  with  the  help  of 
Russia  and  France,  to  endanger  the  integrity 
of  the  neighbouring  Monarchy  much  longer, 
the  consequence  must  have  been  the  gradual 


THE   CASE   FOR  GERMANY  93 

disruption  of  Austria  and  the  subjection  of 
the  whole  Slav  world  to  the  Russian  sceptre, 
with  the  result  that  the  position  of  the  German 
race  in  Central  Europe  would  have  become 
untenable  "  ;  but  it  is  obvious  that  this  plea 
is  itself  untenable,  since  it  makes  a  quite 
distant  and  problematic  danger  the  excuse  for 
a  sudden  and  insulting  blow— for  a  blow,  in 
fact,  almost  certain  to  precipitate  the  danger  I 
How  the  matter  was  decided  in  Berlin  we 
cannot  at  present  tell,  or  what  the  motives 
exactly  were.  It  seems  rather  probable  that 
the  Kaiser  threw  his  weight  on  the  side 
of  peace.  The  German  Executive  at  any 
rate  saw  that  the  great  war  they  had  so  long 
contemplated  and  so  long  prepared  for  was 
close  upon  them — only  in  an  unexpected 
form,  hugely  complicated  and  threatening. 
They  must  have  realized  the  great  danger  of 
the  situation,  but  they  very  likely  may  have 
thought  that  by  another  piece  of  bluff  similar 
to  that  of  1908-9  they  might  intimidate 
Russia  a  second  time  ;  and  they  believed 
that  Russia  was  behindhand  in  her  military 
preparations.  They  also,  it  appears,  thought 
that  England  would  not  fight,  being  too 
much  preoccupied  with  Ireland,   India,  and 


94  THE    HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

other  troubles.     And  so  it  may  have  seemed 
that   Now  was  the   psychological  moment. 

Austria  opened  with  war  on  Servia  (28th 
of  July),  and  the  next  day  Russia  declared  a 
considerable  though  not  complete  mobiliza- 
tion. From  that  moment  a  general  con- 
flagration was  practically  inevitable.  The 
news  of  Russia's  warlike  movement  caused 
a  perfect  panic  in  Berlin.  The  tension  of 
feeling  swung  round  completely  for  the  time 
being  from  enmity  against  England  and 
France  to  fear  of  Russia.  The  final 
mobilization  of  the  Russian  troops  (31st  of 
July)  was  followed  by  the  telegrams  between 
the  Kaiser  and  the  Tsar,  and  by  the  formal 
mobilization  (really  already  complete)  of  the 
German  Army  and  Navy  on  the  ist  of 
August.  War  was  declared  at  Berlin  on 
the  I  St  of  August,  and  the  same  or  next  day 
the  German  forces  entered  Luxemburg.  On 
August  4th  they  entered  Belgium,  and  war 
was  declared  by  England  against  Germany. 

Looking  back  at  the  history  of  the  whole 
affair,  one  seems  to  see,  as  I  have  said,  a 
kind  of  fatality  about  it.  The  great  power 
and  vigour  of  the  German  peoples,  shown  by 


THE   CASE   FOR   GERMANY  95 

their  early  history  in  Europe,  had  been  broken 
up  by  the  religious  and  other  dissensions 
of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries. 
It  fell  to  Prussia  to  become  the  centre  of 
organization  for  a  new  Germany.  The  rich 
human  and  social  material  of  the  German 
States — their  literary,  artistic,  and  scientific 
culture,  their  philosophy,  their  learning — 
clustered  curiously  enough  round  the  hard 
and  military  nucleus  of  the  North.  It  was 
perhaps  their  instinct  and,  for  the  time, 
their  salvation  to  do  so.  The  new  Germany, 
hemmed  in  on  all  sides  by  foreign  Powers, 
could  only  see  her  way  to  reasonable 
expansion  and  recognition,  and  a  field  for 
her  latent  activities,  by  the  use  of  force, 
military  force.  A  long  succession  of  political 
philosophers  drilled  this  into  her.  She 
embarked  in  small  wars  and  always  Vv^ith 
success.  She  became  a  political  unity  and 
a  Great  Power  in  Europe.  And  then  came 
her  commercial  triumph.  Riches  beyond  all 
expectation  flowed  in  ;  and  a  mercantile  class 
arose  in  her  midst  whose  ideals  of  life  were 
of  a  corresponding  character — the  ideals  of 
the  wealthy  shopkeeper.  What  wonder  that, 
feeling  her  power,  feeling  herself  more  than 


96  THE    HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

ever  baulked  of  her  rights,  she  cast  her  eyes 
abroad,  and  coveted  the  imperial  and  com- 
mercial   supremacy   of   the   world? 

In  this  she  had  the  example  of  Britain 
before  her.  Britain  had  laid  land  to  land 
and  market  to  market  over  the  globe,  and 
showed  no  particular  scruple  in  the  matter. 
•Why  should  not  Germany  do  the  same?  It 
was  true  that  Britain  always  carried  the  Bible 
with  her — but  this  was  mere  British  cant. 
Britain  carried  the  Bible  in  her  left  hand, 
but  in  her  right  a  sword  ;  and  when  she  used 
the  latter  she  always  let  the  former  drop. 
Germany  could  do  likewise — but  without 
that  odious  pretence  of  morality,  and  those 
crocodile  tears  over  the  unfortunates  whom 
she  devoured.  It  was  only  a  question  of 
'Might  and  Organization  and  Armament. 

So  far  Germany  seems  to  have  had  a 
perfectly  good  case ;  and  though  we  in 
England  might  not  like  her  ambitions,  we 
could  not  reasonably  find  fault  with  motives 
so  perfectly  similar  to  our  own.  We  might, 
indeed,  make  a  grievance  of  the  frank 
brutality  displayed  in  her  methods  and  the 
defence  of  them  ;  but  then,  she  might  with 
equal  right  object  to  our  everlasting  pretence 


THE   CASE   FOR   GERMANY  97 

of  "  morality,"  and  our  concealment  of 
mercenary  and  imperial  aims  under  the  cloak 
of  virtue  and  innocence.  One  really  must 
confess  that  it  is  difficult  to  say  which  is  the 
worse. 

But  if  the  crystallization  of  Germany  round 
the  Prussian  nucleus  was  for  the  time  the 
source  of  Germany's  success,  it  is  a  question 
whether  it  is  not  even  now  becoming  some- 
thing quite  different,  and  the  likely  cause 
of  a  serious  downfall.  It  would  seem  hardly 
probable  that  the  amalgamation  between 
elements  so  utterly  dissimilar  can  per- 
manently endure.  The  kindly,  studious, 
sociable,  raither  naively  innocent  German 
mass -people  dragged  by  the  scruff  of  the 
neck  into  the  arena  of  militarism  and  world- 
politics,  may  for  a  time  have  had  their 
heads  turned  by  the  exalted  position  in  which 
they  found  themselves  ;  but  it  is  not  likely 
that  they  will  continue  for  long  to  enjoy  the 
situation.  iWith  no  great  instinct  for  politics, 
nor  any  marked  gift  of  tact  and  discern- 
ment, unsuccessful  as;  a  rule  as  colonists,'  and 

•  Though  this  is  only,  perhaps,  true  of  their  State 
colonies.  In  their  individual  and  missiopary  colonizing 
groups,  and  as  pioneer  settlers,  they  seem  to  have 
succeeded  well. 

7 


98  THE    HEALING  OF   NATIONS 

with  no  understanding  of  how  to  govern 
— except  on  the  Prussian  lines,  which  are 
every  day  becoming  more  obsolete  and  less 
adapted  to  the  modern  world — the  role  which 
their  empire-building  philosophers  set  out  for 
them  is  one  which  they  are  eminently  unfitted 
to  fulfil.  It  is  sad,  but  we  cannot  blame 
them  for  the  defect.  They  blame  the  world 
in  general  for  siding  against  them  in  this 
affair,  but  do  not  see  that  in  most  cases 
it  has  been  their  own  want  of  perception 
which  has  left  them  on  the  wrong  side  of 
the   hedge . 

Bismarck,  with  his  "  Blood  and  Iron  " 
policy,  made  a  huge  blunder  in  not  perceiving 
that  in  the  modern  world  spiritual  forces  are 
arising  which  must  for  ever  discredit  the 
same.  He  emphasized  the  blunder  by 
wresting  Alsace-Lorraine  from  France,  and 
again  by  crippling  Russia  in  the  treaty  of 
1878 — thus  making  enemies  where  gener- 
osity might  have  brought  him  friends. 
The  German  Executive  in  July  of  last  year 
( 1914)  showed  extraordinary  want  of  tact  in 
not  seeing  that  Russia,  rebuffed  in  1908  over 
Bosnia  and  Herzegovina,  would  never  put 
up   with   a   second  insult   of  the   same  kind 


THE   CASE   FOR   GERMANY  99 

over  Servia.  The  same  Government  was 
strangely  unable  to  perceive  that  whatever 
it  might  tactically  gain  by  tlie  invasion  and 
devastation  of  Belgium  would  be  more  than 
lost  by  the  moral  effect  of  such  action  on 
the  whole  world ;  and  notwithstanding  its 
army  of  spies,  it  had  not  the  sense  to  see 
that  England,  whether  morally  bound  to  or 
not,  was  certain,  at  all  costs,  to  fight  in 
defence  of  Belgium's  neutrality.  So  true 
it  is  that  without  the  understanding  which 
comes  from  the  heart,  all  the  paraphernalia 
of  science  and  learning  and  the  material 
results  of  organization  and  discipline  are  of 
little  good. 

But  however  we  choose  to  apportion  the 
blame  or  at  least  the  responsibility  for  the 
situation  among  the  various  Governments 
concerned,  the  main  point  and  the  main 
lesson  of  it  all  is  to  see  that  any  such  appor- 
tionment does  not  much  matter  !  As  long 
as  our  Governments  are  constructed  as  they 
are — that  is,  on  the  principle  of  representing, 
not  the  real  masses  of  their  respective 
peoples,  but  the  interests  of  certain  classes, 
especially  the  commercial,  financial,  and 
military  classes — so  long  will  such  wars  be 


100        THE    HEALING   OF    NATIONS 

inevitable.  The  real  blame  rests,  not  with 
the  particular  Foreign  policy  of  this  or  that 
country  but  with  the  fact  that  Europe, 
already  rising  through  her  mass-peoples 
into  a  far  finer  and  more  human  and  spiritual 
life  than  of  old,  still  lies  bound  in  the 
chains  of  an  almost  Feudal  social  order. 

When  the  great  German  mass -peoples  find 
this  out,  when  they  discover  the  little  rift 
in  the  lute  which  now  separates  their  real 
quality  from  the  false  standards  of  their  own 
dominant  military  and  commercial  folk,  then 
their  true  role  in  the  world  will  begin,  and 
a  glorious  role  it  will  be. 


VI 

THE   HEALING  OE  NATIONS  ' 

It  is  quite  possible  that  the  Uttle  rift  within 
the  lute,  alluded  to  in  the  concluding  para- 
graph of  last  chapter,  may  "widen  so  far  as  to 
cause  before  long  great  internal  changes  and 
reconstructions  in  Germany  herself ;  but 
short  of  that  happening,  it  would  seem  that 
there  is  no  alternative  for  the  Allies  but  to 
continue  the  war  until  her  Militarism  can  be 
put  out  of  court,  and  that  for  long  years  to 
come.  There  is  no  alternative,  because  she 
has  revealed  her  hand  too  clearly  as  a 
menace— if  she  should  prevail— of  barbarous 
force  to  the  whole  world.  It  is  this  menace 
which  has  roused  practically  the  whole  world 
against  her.  And  there  is  this  amount  of 
good    in    the    situation,    namely,    that   while 

*  Reprinted  by   permission   from    the  English   Review 
for  January,  191 5. 

lot 


102         THE    HEALING   OF  NATIONS 

with  the  victory  of  Germany  a  German 
"  terror  "  might  be  established  through  the 
world,  with  the  victory  of  the  Allies  neither 
England,  nor  France,  nor  Russia,  nor  little 
Belgium,  nor  any  other  country,  could  claim 
a  final  credit  and  supremacy.  With  the  latter 
victory  we  shall  be  freed  from  the  nightmare 
claim  of  any  one  nation's  world-empire. 

But  in  order  to  substantiate  this  result 
England  must  also  abdicate  her  claim.  She 
must  abdicate  her  mere  crass  insistence  on 
commercial  supremacy.  The  "  Nation  of 
Shopkeepers  "  theory,  which  has  in  the  past 
made  her  the  hated  of  other  nations,  which 
has  created  within  her  borders  a  vulgar  and 
unpleasant  class— the  repository  of  much 
arrogant  wealth— must  cease  to  be  the 
standard  of  her  life.  I  have  before  me  at 
this  moment  a  manifesto  of  "  The  British 
Empire  League,"  patronized  by  royalty  and 
the  dukes,  and  of  which  Lord  Rothschild  is 
treasurer.  The  constitution  of  the  League 
was  framed  in  1895  ;  and  I  note  with  regret 
that  positively  the  five  "  principal  objects 
of  the  League  "  mentioned  therein  have 
solely  to  do  with  the  extension  and  facilita- 
tion of  Britain's  trade,  and  the  "  co-opera- 


THE   HEALING   OF   NATIONS        103 

tion  of  the  military  and  naval  forces  of  the 
Empire  with  a  special  view  to  the  due 
protection  of  the  trade  routes."  Not  a  word 
is  said  in  the  whole  manifesto  about  the 
human  and  social  responsibilities  of  this 
vast  Empire  ;  not  a  word  about  the  guar- 
dianship and  nurture  of  native  races,  their 
guidance  and  assistance  among  the  pitfalls 
of  civilization  ;  not  a  word  about  the  prin- 
ciples of  honour  and  just  dealing  with  regard 
to  our  civilized  neighbour-nations  in  Europe 
and  elsewhere ;  not  a  word  about  the 
political  freedom  and  welfare  of  all  classes 
at  home.  One  rubs  one's  eyes,  and  looks 
at  the  document  again;  but  it  is  so.  Its 
one  inspiration  is— Trade.  Seeing  that,  I 
confess  to  a  sinking  of  the  heart.  Can  we 
blame  Germany  for  struggling  at  all  costs 
to  enlarge  her  borders,  when  that  is  what 
the  British  Empire  means  ? 

Until  we  rise,  as  a  nation,  to  a  conception 
of  what  we  mean  by  our  national  life,  finer 
and  grander  than  a  mere  counting  of  trade- 
returns,  what  can  we  expect  save  failure 
and  ill-success  ? 

Possibly  in  the  conviction  that  she  is 
fighting  for  a  worthy  object  (the  ending  of 


I04        THE    HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

militarism),  and  in  the  determination  (if  sin- 
cerely carried  out)  of  once  more  play- 
ing her  part  in  the  world  as  the  protector  of 
small  nations,  Britain  may  find  her  salvation, 
and  a  cause  which  will  save  her  soul.  It  is 
certainly  encouraging  to  find  that  there  is 
a  growing  feeling  in  favour  of  the  recog- 
nition and  rehabilitation  of  the  small  peoples 
of  the  world.  If  it  is  true  that  Britain 
by  her  grasping  Imperial  Commercialism 
in  the  past  (and  let  us  hope  that  period 
is  past)  has  roused  jealousy  and  hatred 
among  the  other  nations,  equally  is  it 
true  that  Germany  to-day,  by  her  dreams 
of  world-conquest,  has  been  rousing  hatred 
and  fear.  But  the  day  has  gone  by  of  world- 
empires  founded  on  the  lust  of  conquest, 
whether  that  conquest  be  military  or  com- 
mercial. The  modern  peoples  surely  are 
growing  out  of  dreams  so  childish  as  that. 
The  world-empire  of  Goethe  and  Beethoven 
is  even  now  far  more  extensive,  far  more 
powerful,  than  that  which  Wilhelm  II  and 
his  Junkers  are  seeking  to  encompass. 
There  is  something  common,  unworthy,  in 
the  effort  of  domination ;  and  while  the 
Great    Powers    have    thus    vulgarized    them- 


THE   HEALING   OF   NATIONS       105 

selves,  it  is  the  little  countries  who  have 
gone  forvi^ard  in  the  path  of  progress.  "  In 
modern  Europe  what  do  we  not  owe  to 
little  Switzerland,  lighting  the  torch  of 
freedom  six  hundred  years  ago,  and  keeping 
it  alight  through  all  the  centuries  when 
despotic  monarchies  held  the  rest  of  the 
European  Continent?  And  what  to  free 
■Holland,  with  her  great  men  of  learning  and 
her  painters  surpassing  those  of  all  other 
countries  save  Italy?  So  the  small  Scan- 
dinavian nations  have  given  to  the  world 
famous  men  of  science,  from  Linnaeus  do\vn- 
wards,  poets  like  Tegner  an,d  Bjornson, 
scholars  like  Madvig,  dauntless  explorers  like 
Fridthiof  Nansen.  England  had,  in  the  age 
of  Shakespeare,  Bacon,  and  Milton,  a  popu- 
lation little  larger  than  that  of  Bulgaria 
to-day.  The  United  States,  in  the  days  of 
Washington  and  Franklin  and  Jefferson  and 
Hamilton  and  Marshall,  counted  fewer  in- 
habitants than  Denmark  or  Greece."^ 

In  all  their  internal  politics  and  social 
advancement,  Switzerland,  Holland,  Den- 
mark, Norway  and  Sweden,  Finland  (until 
the  paw  of  the  Bear  was  on  her)  and  Bel- 

'  Lord  Bryce  in  the  Daily  Chronicle^  October,  19 14. 


io6        THE    HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

gium  (till  the  claw  of  the  Spread-Eagle) 
have  been  well  to  the  fore.  It  is  they  who 
have  carried  on  the  banner  of  idealism  which 
Germany  herself  uplifted  when  she  was  a 
small  people  or  a  group  of  small  peoples. 
It  is  they  who  have  really  had  prosperous, 
healthy,  independent,  and  alert  populations. 
How  much  more  interesting,  we  may  say, 
would  Europe  be  under  the  variety  of  such 
a  regime  than  under  the  monotonous  bureau- 
cracy and  officialism  of  any  Great  Power  ! 
And  to  some  such  scheme  we  must  adhere. 
It  would  mean,  of  course,  the  alliance  of 
all  the  States  of  Western  Europe,  large  and 
small  (and  including  both  a  remodelled 
Germany  and  a  largely  remodelled  Austria) 
in  one  great  Federation— whose  purpose 
would  be  partly  to  unite  and  preserve  Europe 
against  any  common  foe,  from  the  East  or 
elsewhere,  and  partly  to  regulate  any  over- 
weening ambition  of  a  member  of  the 
Federation,  such  as  might  easily  become  a 
menace  to  the  other  members.  A  secondary 
but  most  important  result  of  the  formation 
of  such  a  United  States  of  Europe  would 
be  that  while  each  State  would  probably 
preserve   a   small   military  establishment   of 


THE    HEALING   OF    NATIONS        107 

its  own,  the  enormous  and  fatal  incubus  of 
the  present  armaments  system  would  be 
rendered  unnecessary,  and  so  at  last  the 
threat  of  national  bankruptcy  and  ruin,  which 
has  of  late  pursued  the  nations  like  an  evil 
dream,  might  pass  away.  [But  in  that 
matter  of  finance  it  cannot  be  disguised  that 
a  terrible  period  still  awaits  the  European 
peoples.  Already  the  moneylenders  sitting 
on  their  chests  form  a  veritable  nightmare  ; 
but  with  fresh  debts  by  the  thousand  million 
sterling  being  contracted,  there  is  great 
danger  that  the  mass -peoples  beneath  will 
be  worse  paralysed  and  broken  even  than 
they  are  now — unless,  indeed,  with  a  great 
effort  they  rouse  themselves  and  throw  off 
the  evil  burden.] 

That  the  world  is  waking  up  to  a  recog- 
nition of  racial  rights— that  is,  the  right  of 
each  race  to  have  as  far  as  possible  its  own 
Government,  instead  of  being  lorded  over 
by  an  alien  race— is  a  good  sign  ;  and  a 
European  settlement  along  that  line  must 
be  pressed  for.  At  last,  after  centuries  of 
discomfort,  we  at  home  are  finding  our  solu- 
tion of  the  Irish  question  in  this  very  obvious 


io8        THE   HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

way ;  and  it  may  be  that  Europe,  tired  of 
war,  may  finally  have  the  sense  to  adopt 
the  same  principle.  Of  course,  there  are 
cases  where  populations  are  so  mixed,  as, 
for  instance,  the  Czechs  and  Slovaks  and 
Germans  in  Bohemia  and  Moravia,  or 
where  small  colonies  of  one  race  are  so 
embedded  in  the  midst  of  another  race,  as 
are  the  Germans  among  the  Roumanians  of 
Transylvania,  that  this  solution  may  be 
difhcult.  That  is  no  reason,  however,  why 
the  general  principle  should  not  be  applied. 
It  must,  indeed,  be  applied  if  Europe  is  not 
to  return  to  barbarism. 

And  it  interests  us— having  regard  to  what 
I  have  said  about  class  rule  being  so  fruitful 
a  cause  of  war— to  remember  that  the  rule  of 
one  race  by  another  always  does  mean  class 
rule.  The  alien  conquerors  who  descend 
upon  a  country  become  the  military  and 
landlord  caste  there.  Thus  the  Norman 
barons  in  England,  the  English  squires  in 
Ireland,  the  Magyars  in  Hungary,  the  Ger- 
man barons  in  East  Prussia  and  the  Baltic 
provinces,  and  so  forth.  They  make  their 
profit  and  maintain  themselves  out  of  the 
labour  and  the  taxation  of  the  subject 
peoples. 


THE    HEALING   OF   NATIONS       109 

In  the  earlier  forms  of  social  life,  when 
men  lived  in  tribes,  a  rude  equality  and 
democracy  prevailed  ;  there  was  nothing  that 
could  well  be  called  class -government ;  there 
was  simply  custom  and  the  leadership  of 
the  elders  of  the  tribe.  Then  with  the 
oncoming  of  what  we  call  civilization,  and 
the  growth  of  the  sense  of  property,  dif- 
ferences arose— accumulations  of  wealth  and 
power  by  individuals,  enslavements  of  tribes 
by  other  tribes  ;  and  classes  sprang  up,  and 
class -government,  and  so  the  material  of 
endless  suffering  and  oppression  and  hatred 
and  warfare.  I  have  already  explained  (in 
the  Introduction)  that  Class  in  itself  as  the 
mere  formation  within  a  nation  of  groups 
of  similar  occupation  and  activity— working 
harmoniously  with  each  other  and  with  the 
nation— is  a  perfectly  natural  and  healthy 
phenomenon ;  it  is  only  when  it  means 
groups  pursuing  their  own  interests  counter 
to  each  other  and  to  the  nation  that  it  be- 
comes diseased.  There  will  come  a  time 
when  the  class-element  in  this  latter  sense 
will  be  ejected  from  society,  and  society  will 
return  again  to  its  democratic  form  and 
structure.     There   will  be  no   want,  in  that 


no        THE   HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

time,  of  variety  of  occupation  and  talent, 
or  of  differentiation  in  the  social  organism  ; 
quite  the  contrary ;  but  simply  there  will 
be  no  predatory  or  parasitical  groups  within 
such  organism,  whose  interests  will  run 
counter  to  the  whole,  and  which  will  act 
(as  such  classes  act  now)  as  foci  and  seed- 
beds of  disease  and  strife  within  the  whole. 
■With  a  return  to  the  recognition  of  racial 
rights  and  autonomies  over  the  world,  it  is 
clear  that  one  great  cause  of  strife  will 
be  removed,  and  we  shall  be  one  step  nearer 
to  the  ending  of  the  preposterous  absurdity 
of  war. 

And  talking  about  the  difficulty  of  sorting 
out  mixed  populations,  or  of  dealing  with 
small  colonies  of  one  race  embedded  in  the 
midst  of  another  race,  it  is  evident  that  once 
you  get  rid  of  autocratic  or  military  or  class- 
government  of  any  kind,  and  return  to 
democratic  forms,  this  difficulty  will  be  much 
reduced  or  disappear.  Small  democratic 
communes  are  perfectly  simple  to  form  in 
groups  of  any  magnitude  or  minuteness 
which  may  be  desirable  ;  and  such  groups 
would  easily  federate  or  ally  themselves  with 
surrounding     democracies     of     alien     race. 


THE   HEALING   OF   NATIONS       in 

whereas  if  lorded  over  by  alien  conquerors 
they  would  be  in  a  state  of  chronic  rebellion. 
Of  such  democratic  alliance  and  federation 
of  peoples  of  totally  different  race,  Switzer- 
land supphes  a  well-recognized  and  far- 
acclaimed  example. 

That  in  the  future  there  will  be  an  outcry 
in  favour  of  Conscription  made  by  certain 
parties  in  Britain  goes  without  saying  ;  but 
that  must  be  persistently  opposed.  The 
nation  says  it  is  fighting  to  put  down 
Militarism.  Why,  then,  make  compulsory 
militarism  foundational  in  our  national  life? 
To  abolish  militarism  by  militarism  is  like 
"  putting  down  Drink  "  by  swallowing  it  I 
The  whole  lesson  of  this  war  is  against  con- 
scription. Germany  could  never  have  "  im- 
posed herself  "  on  Europe  without  it.  And 
yet  her  soldiers,  brave  as  they  naturally 
are,  and  skilfully  as  they  have  fought,  have 
not  done  themselves  justice.  How  could 
they  under  such  conditions— forced  into  battle 
by  their  officers,  flung  in  heaps  on  the 
enemy's  guns?  The  voluntary  response  in 
Britain  to  the  call  to  arms  has  been  inspirit- 
ing ;    and  if  voluntaryism  means  momentary 


112        THE    HEALING  OF   NATIONS 

delay  in  a  crisis,  still  it  means  success  in 
the  end.  No  troops  have  fought  more  finely 
than  the  British.  Said  Surgeon-General 
Evatt,  speaking  in  London  in  October— and 
General  Evatt's  word  in  such  a  matter  ought 
to  carry  weight :  "  After  long  experience  in 
studying  Russian,  German,  Bavarian,  Saxon, 
French,  Spanish,  and  American  fighting  units, 
my  verdict  is  unhesitatingly  in  favour  of  the 
British.  .  .  .  -What  has  occurred  lately  has 
been  a  splendid  triumph  of  citizenship, 
because  people  were  allowed  their  proper 
liberty  and  the  consciousness  of  freely 
sharing  in  a  great  Empire." 

Besides  it  must  always  be  remembered 
that  conscription  gives  a  Government  power 
to  initiate  an  iniquitous  war,  whereas  volun- 
taryism keeps  the  national  life  clean  and 
healthy.  A  free  people  will  not  fight  for 
the  trumped-up  schemes  and  selfish  machina- 
tions of  a  class— not,  indeed,  unless  they  are 
grossly  deceived  by  Press  and  Class  plots. 
Anyhow,  tt>  force  men  to  fight  in  causes 
which  they  do  not  approve,  to  compel  them 
to  adopt  a  military  career  when  their  tem- 
peraments are  utterly  unsuited  to  such  a 
thing,   or    when    their   consciences    or   their 


THE   HEALING   OF   NATIONS        113 

religion  forbid  them— these  things  are  both 
foohsh  and  wicked. 

If  the  nation  wants  soldiers  it  must  pay 
for  them .  England,  for  example,  is  rolling  in 
wealth  ;  and  it  is  simply  a  scandal  that  the 
wealthy  classes  should  sit  at  home  in  comfort 
and  security  and  pay  to  the  man  in  the 
trenches— who  is  risking  his  life  at  every 
moment,  and  often  living  in  such  exhaus- 
tion and  misery  as  actually  to  wish  for  the 
bullet  which  will  end  his  life— no  more  than 
the  minimum  wage  of  an  ordinary  day- 
labourer  ;  and  that  they  should  begrudge 
every  penny  paid  to  his  dependents— whether 
he  be  living  or  dead— or  to  himself  when  he 
returns,  a  lifelong  cripple,  to  his  home.  To 
starve  and  stint  your  own  soldiers,  to  dis- 
courage recruiting,  and  then  to  make  the 
consequent  failure  of  men  to  come  forward 
into  an  excuse  for  conscription  is  the 
meanest  of  policies.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
the  circumstances  of  the  present  war  show 
that  with  anything  like  decent  reward  for 
their  services  there  is  an  abundant,  an  almost 
over-abundant,  supply  of  men  ready  to  flock 
to  the  standard  of  their  country  in  a  time  of 
necessity.     Nor  must  it  be  forgotten,  in  this 

8 


114        THE   HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

matter  of  pay,  that  the  general  type  and 
average  of  our  forces  to-day,  whether  naval 
or  mihtary,  is  far  higher  than  it  was  fifty, 
years  ago.  The  men  are  just  as  plucky, 
and  more  educated,  more  alert,  more  com- 
petent in  every  way.  To  keep  them  up  to 
this  high  standard  of  efficiency  they  need  a 
high  standard  of  care  and  consideration. 

It  may,  however,  be  said— in  view  of  our 
present  industrial  conditions,  and  the  low 
standard  of  physical  health  and  vitality  pre- 
vailing among  the  young  folk  of  our  large 
towns— that  physical  drill  and  scout  training, 
including  ambulance  and  other  work,  and 
qualification  in  some  useful  trade,  might  very 
well  be  made  a  part  of  our  general  educa- 
tional system,  for  rich  and  poor  alike,  say 
between  the  ages  of  sixteen  and  eighteen. 
Such  a  training  would  to  each  individual 
boy  be  immensely  valuable,  and  by  providingi 
some  rudimentary  understanding  of  military 
affairs  and  the  duties  of  public  service  and 
citizenship,  would  enable  him  to  choose  how 
he  could  be  helpful  to  the  nation— provided 
always  he  were  not  forced  to  make  his 
choice  in  a  direction  distasteful  or  repugnant 
to  him.     In  any  good  cause,  as  in  a  war  of 


THE   HEALING  OF   NATIONS        115 

defence  against  a  foreign  enemy,  it  is  obvious 
enough,  as  I  have  said,  that  there  would  be 
plenty  of  native  enthusiasm  forthcoming 
without  legal  or  official  pressure.  However, 
I  have  enlarged  a  little  on  the  subject  of 
Conscription  in  a  later  chapter,  and  will  say 
no  more  here. 

But  the  burning  and  pressing  question 
is  :  Why  should  we— we,  the  "  enlightened 
and  civilized  "  nations  of  Europe— get  in- 
volved in  these  senseless  wars  at  all  ?  And 
surely  this  war  will,  of  all  wars,  force  an 
answer  to  the  question.  Here,  for  the  last 
twenty  years,  have  these  so-called  Great 
Powers  been  standing  round,  all  professing 
that  their  one  desire  is  peace,  and  all  mean- 
while arming  to  the  teeth  ;  each  accusing 
the  others  of  militant  intentions,  and  all 
lamenting  that  "  war  is  inevitable."  Here 
they  have  been  forming  their  Ententes  and 
Alliances,  carrying  on  their  diplomatic  cabals 
and  intrigues,  studying  the  map  and  ad- 
justing the  Balance  of  Power— all,  of  course, 
with  the  best  intentions— and  lo  !  with  the 
present  result  I  -What  nonsense  !  What 
humbug  !     What  an  utter  bankruptcy  of  so- 


ii6        THE    HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

called  diplomacy  !  When  will  the  peoples 
themselves  arise  and  put  a  stop  to  this  fool- 
ing—the people  who  give  their  lives  and 
pay  the  cost  of  it  all?  If  the  present-day, 
diplomats  and  Foreign  Ministers  have  sin- 
cerely striven  for  peace,  then  their  utter  in- 
capacity and  futility  have  been  proved  to 
the  hilt,  and  they  must  be  swept  away.  If 
they  have  not  sincerely  striven  for  peace, 
but  only  pretended  to  so  strive,  then  also 
they  must  be  swept  away,  for  deceit  in  such 
a  matter  is  unpardonable. 

And  no  doubt  the  latter  alternative  is  the 
true  one.  There  has  been  a  pretence  of  the 
Governments  all  round— a  pretence  of  deep 
concern  for  humanity  and  the  welfare  of 
the  mass -peoples  committed  to  their  charge  ; 
but  the  real  moving  power  beneath  has  been 
c/a55 -interest— the  interest  of  the  great  com- 
mercial class  in  each  nation,  with  its  acolyte 
and  attendant,  the  military  or  aristocratic. 
It  is  this  class,  with  its  greeds  and  vanities 
and  suspicions  and  jealousies,  which  is  the 
cause  of  strife  ;  the  working-masses  of  the 
various  nations  have  no  desire  to  quarrel  with 
each  other.  Nay,  they  are  animated  by  a 
very  different  spirit. 


THE  HEALING   OF   NATIONS        117 

In  an  interesting  article  published  by 
the  German  Socialist  paper  Vorwdrts,  on 
September  27,  19 14,  and  reproduced  in  our 
Press,  occurred  the  following  passage,  in 
which  the  war  is  traced  to  its  commercial 
sources  :  "  Germany  has  enjoyed  an 
economical  prosperity  such  as  no  other 
country  has  experienced  during  the  last 
decade.  That  meant  with  the  capitalist 
class  a  revival  of  strong  Imperialist  ten- 
dencies, which  have  been  evident  enough. 
This,  again,  gave  rise  to  mistrust  abroad,  at 
least  in  capitalist  circles,  who  did  their  best 
to  communicate  their  feelings  to  the  great 
masses,  .  .  .  and  so  the  German  people  as 
a  whole  has  been  made  responsible  for  what 
has  been  the  work  of  a  small  class.  .  .  . 
The  comrades  abroad  can  be  assured  that 
though  German  workmen  are  ready  to  defend 
their  country  they  will,  above  all,  not  forget 
that  their  interests  are  the  same  as  those  of 
the  proletariat  in  other  countries,  who  also 
against  their  will  were  forced  into  the  war 
and  now  do  their  duty.  They  can  rest 
assured  that  the  German  people  are  not  less 
humane  than  others— a  result  to  which 
education   through   workmen's   organizations 


ii8        THE   HEALING  OF  NATIONS 

has  greatly  contributed.  If  German  soldiers 
in  the  excitement  of  war  should  commit 
atrocities,  it  can  be  said  that  among  us— 
and  also  in  other  circles— there  will  not  be 
a  single  person  to  approve  of  them." 

Reading  this  statement— so  infinitely  more 
sensible  and  human  than  anything  to  be 
found  in  the  ordinary  Capitalist  Press  of 
England  and  Germany— one  cannot  help 
feeling  that  there  is  practically  little  hope 
for  the  future  until  the  international  work- 
ing masses  throughout  Europe  come  forward 
and,  joining  hands  with  each  other,  take 
charge  of  the  foolish  old  Governments  (who 
represent  the  remains  of  the  decadent  feudal 
and  commercial  systems),  and  shape  the 
Western  world  at  last  to  the  heart's  desire 
of  the  peoples  that  inhabit  it. 

"  The  peoples  of  the  world  desire  peace," 
said  Bourtzeff,  the  Russian  exile  '—and  he, 
who  has  been  in  many  lands,  ought  to  know. 
But  they  also— if  they  would  obtain  peace- 
must  exercise  an  eternal  vigilance  lest  they 
fall  into  the  hands  of  class -schemers  and 
be  betrayed  into  that  which  they  do  not 
desire.  The  example  of  Germany— which  we 
*  In  a  letter  to  the  Times,  September  i8,  1914. 


THE  HEALING   OF   NATIONS         119 

have  considered  above — shows  how  easily  a 
good  and  friendly  and  pacific  people  may 
by  mere  political  inattention  and  ignorance, 
and  by  a  quasi-scientific  philosophy  which 
imposes  on  its  political  ignorance,  be  led 
into  a  disastrous  situation.  It  shows  how 
preposterous  it  is  that  Governments  gener- 
ally— as  at  present  constituted — should  set 
themselves  up  as  the  representatives  of  the 
mass-peoples'  wishes,  and  as  the  arbiters  of 
national  destinies.  And  it  shows  how  vitally 
necessary  it  is  that  the  people,  even  the 
working  masses  and  the  peasants,  should 
have  some  sort  of  political  education  and 
understanding. 

In  that  matter,  of  the  political  education 
of  the  masses,  America,  in  her  United  States 
and  Canada,  yields  a  fine  example.  Though 
not  certainly  perfect,  her  general  standard 
of  education  and  alertness  is  infinitely 
superior  to  that  of  the  peoples  of  the  Old 
World.  And  some  writers  contend  that  it 
is  just  in  that — in  her  general  level  and  not 
in  her  freaks  of  genius— that  America's  claim 
lies  to  distinction  among  the  nations  of  the 
earth.  If  you  consider  the  peoples  of  the 
Old  World,   whether  in  England,   Scotland, 


I20        THE   HEALING  OF  NATIONS 

or  Ireland,  in  France,  Spain,  Italy,  Germany, 
Austria,  Russia,  or  farther  East  and  farther 
South  over  the  earth,  you  will  find  the  great 
masses,  on  the  land  or  in  the  workshops, 
still  sunk  in  vast  ignorance,  apathy,  and 
irresponsibility.  Only  here  and  there  among 
those  I  have  mentioned,  and  notably  among 
the  smaller  peoples  of  Western  Europe, 
like  Switzerland,  Holland,  Denmark,  and 
Sweden,  are  the  masses  beginning  to  stir, 
as  it  were,  towards  the  daylight.  It  can 
only  be  with  the  final  opening  of  their  eyes 
and  awakening  from  slumber  that  the  rule 
of  the  classes  will  be  at  an  end.  But  that 
awakening— with  the  enormous  spread  of 
literature  and  locomotion  and  intercommuni- 
cation of  all  kinds  over  the  modern  world, 
cannot  now,  one  would  say,  be  long  delayed. 

Meanv/hile,  and  until  that  era  arrives,  we 
can  only  insist  (at  any  rate  in  our  own 
country)  on  a  different  kind  of  foreign  policy 
from  what  we  have  had— a  policy  open  and 
strong,  not  founded  on  Spread-Eagleism,  and 
decidedly  not  founded  on  commercialism  and 
the  interests  of  the  trading  classes  (as  the 
Empire  League  seem  to  desire),  but  directed 


THE   HEALING   OF  NATIONS         121 

towards  the  real  welfare  of  the  masses  in 
our  own  and  other  lands.  If  our  rulers  and 
representatives  really  seek  peace,  here  is  the 
obvious  way  to  ensue  and  secure  it— namely, 
by  making  political  friends  of  those  in  all 
countries  who  desire  peace  and  are  already 
stretching  hands  of  amity  to  each  other. 
•What  simpler  and  more  obvious  way  can 
there  be  ?  "  We  hail  our  working-class 
comrades  of  every  land,"  says  the  Manifesto 
of  the  Independent  Labour  Party.  "  Across 
the  roar  of  guns  we  send  greeting  to  the 
German  Socialists.  They  have  laboured  un- 
ceasingly to  promote  good  relations  with 
Britain,  as  we  with  Germany.  They  are  no 
enemies  of  ours,  but  faithful  friends.  In 
forcing  this  appalling  crime  upon  the  nations, 
it  is  the  rulers,  the  diplomats,  the  militarists, 
who  have  sealed  their  doom.  In  tears  and 
blood  and  bitterness  the  greater  Democracy 
will  be  born.  With  steadfast  faith  we  greet 
the  future  ;  our  cause  is  holy  and  imperish- 
able, and  the  labour  of  our  hands  has  not 
been  in  vain." 

Yes,  we  must  have  a  foreign  policy  strong 
and  sincere — and  not  only  so,  but  open  and 
avowed.     The  present  Diplomatic  system  is 


122        THE   HEALING  OF  NATIONS 

impossible  of  continuance.  It  has  grown 
up  in  an  automatic  way  out  of  antiquated 
conditions,  and  no  one  in  particular  can  be 
blamed  for  it.  But  that  young-  men,  pro- 
foundly ignorant  of  the  world,  and  having 
the  very  borne  outlook  on  life  which  belongs 
to  our  gilded  youth  (67  per  cent,  of  the 
candidates  for  the  Diplomatic  Corps  being 
drawn  from  Eton  alone),  having  also  in  high 
degree  that  curious  want  of  cosmopolitan 
sympathy  and  adaptability  which  is  charac- 
teristic of  the  English  wealthy  classes  ( every 
candidate  for  the  Corps  must  have  at  least 
£400  a  year  of  his  own)— that  such  a  type 
should  be  charged  with  the  representation 
of  the  United  Kingdom  in  foreign  affairs  is 
to-day  a  hopeless  anomaly,  and  indeed  a 
very  great  danger.  The  recommendations 
just  published  of  the  Royal  Commission  are 
in  the  right  direction,  but  they  need  urgent 
reinforcement  and  extension  by  the  pressure 
of  public  opinion.  And  if  in  the  present- 
day  situation  of  affairs  we  cannot  refer  every 
question  which  arises  directly  to  the  nation, 
we  must  at  least  do  away  with  the  one-man- 
Secretary  system,  and  have  in  his  place  a 
large   and   responsible  committee,   represen- 


THE    HEALING   OF   NATIONS         123 

tative,  not  of  any  one  party  or  class  but 
as  far  as  possible  of  the  whole  people. 
[At  this  moment,  for  instance,  as  far  as 
we  know,  the  terms  of  settlement  of  the 
present  war  may  actually  be  being  arranged 
over  our  heads,  and  yet  that  may  be  taking 
place  quite  apart  from  the  approval  and  the 
wishes  of  the  most  weighty  portion  of  the 
nation.] 

Another  thing  that  we  must  look  to  with 
some  hope  for  the  future  is  the  influence  of 
Women.  Profoundly  shocked  as  they  are  by 
the  senseless  folly  and  monstrous  bloodshed 
of  the  present  conflict,  it  is  certain  that  when 
this  phase  is  over  they  will  insist  on  having 
a  voice  in  the  politics  of  the  future.  The 
time  has  gone  by  when  the  mothers  and 
wives  and  daughters  of  the  race  will  consent 
to  sit  by  meek  and  silent  while  the  men 
in  their  madness  are  blowing  each  other's 
brains  out  and  making  mountains  out  of 
corpses.  It  is  hardly  to  be  expected  that 
war  will  cease  from  the  earth  this  side  of 
the  millennium  ;  but  women  will  surely  only 
condone  it  when  urged  by  some  tremendous 
need  or  enthusiasm  ;  they  will  not  rejoice 
—as    men   sometimes    do—in    the   mere    lust 


124         THE   HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

of  domination  and  violence.  With  their  keen 
perception  of  the  little  things  of  life,  and 
the  way  in  which  the  big  things  are  related 
to  these,  they  will  see  too  clearly  the  cost 
of  war  in  broken  hearts  and  ruined  homes 
to  allow  their  men  to  embark  in  it  short  of 
the  direst  necessity. 

And  through  the  women  I  come  back 
to  the  elementary  causes  and  roots  of 
the  present  war— the  little  fibres  in  our  social 
life  which  have  fed,  and  are  still  feeding, 
the  fatal  tree  whose  fruits  are,  not  the  heal- 
ing but  the  strife  of  nations.  In  the  present 
day— though  there  may  be  other  influences 
—it  is  evident  enough  that  rampant  and  un- 
measured commercial  greed,  concentrating 
itself  in  a  special  class,  is  the  main  cause, 
the  tap-root,  of  the  whole  business.  And 
this,  equally  evidently,  springs  out  of  the 
innumerable  greed  of  individuals— the  count- 
less fibres  that  combine  to  one  result— the 
desire  of  private  persons  to  get  rich  quick 
at  all  costs,  to  make  their  gains  out  of  others' 
losses,  to  take  advantage  of  each  other,  to 
triumph  in  success  regardless  of  others' 
failures.  And  these  unworthy  motives  and 
inhuman    characteristics    again    spring    ob- 


THE   HEALING   OF   NATIONS         125 

viously  out  of  the  mean  and  materialistic 
ideals  of  life  which  still  have  sway  among 
us— the  ideals  of  wealth  and  luxury  and  dis- 
play— of  which  the  horrors  of  war  are  the 
sure  and  certain  obverse.  As  long  as  we 
foster  these  things  in  our  private  life,  so 
long  will  they  lead  in  our  public  life  to 
the  embitterment  of  nation  against  nation. 
What  is  the  ruling  principle  of  the  interior 
and  domestic  conduct  of  each  nation  to-day 
—even  within  its  own  borders— but  an  in- 
decent scramble  of  class  against  class,  of 
individual  against  individual?  To  rise  to 
noisy  power  and  influence,  and  to  ill-bred 
wealth  and  riches,  by  trampling  others  down 
and  profiting  by  their  poverty  is— as  Ruskin 
long  ago  told  us— the  real  and  prevailing 
motive  of  our  peoples,  whatever  their  pro- 
fessions of  Christianity  may  be.  Small  won- 
der, then,  if  out  of  such  interior  conditions 
there  rise  to  dominance  in  the  great  world 
those  very  classes  who  exhibit  the  same 
vulgarities  in  their  most  perfect  form,  and 
that  their  conflict  with  each  other,  as  between 
nation  and  nation,  exhibit  to  us,  in  the 
magnified  and  hideous  form  of  war,  the  same 
sore   which  is   all   the   time   corrupting  our 


126        THE   HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

internal  economy.  The  brutality;  and 
atrocity  of  modem  war  is  but  the  reflection 
of  the  brutality  and  inhumanity  of  our  com- 
mercial regime  and  ideals.  The  slaughter 
of  the  battlefields  may  be  more  obvious,  but 
it  is  less  deliberate,  and  it  is  doubtful  whether 
it  be  really  worse,  than  the  daily  and  yearly 
slaughter  of  the  railways,  the  mines,  and  the 
workshops.  That  being  so,  it  is  no  good 
protesting  against,  and  being  shocked  at, 
an  evil  which  is  our  very  own  creation ;  and 
to  cry  out  against  war-lords  is  useless,  when 
it  is  our  desires  and  ambitions  which  set  the 
iwar-lords  in  motion.  Let  all  those  who 
indulge  and  luxuriate  in  ill-gotten  wealth 
to-day  (and,  indeed,  their  name  is  Legion), 
as  well  as  all  those  who  meanly  and  idly 
groan  because  their  wealth  is  taken  from 
them,  think  long  and  deeply  on  these  things . 
Truth  and  simplicity  of  life  are  not  mere 
fads  ;  they  are  something  more  than  abstrac- 
tions and  private  affairs,  something  more 
than  social  ornaments.  They  are  vital 
matters  which  lie  at  the  root  of  national  well- 
being.  They  are  things  which  in  their 
adoption  or  in  their  denial  search  right 
through  the  tissue  of  public  life.     To  live 


THE    HEALING   OF   NATIONS         127 

straightforwardly  by  your  own  labour  is  to 
be  at  peace  with  the  world.  To  Hve  on  the 
labour  of  others  is  not  only  to  render  your 
life  false  at  home,  but  it  is  to  encroach  on 
those  around  you,  to  invite  resistance  and 
hostility  ;  and  when  such  a  principle  of  life 
is  favoured  by  a  whole  people,  that  people 
will  not  only  be  in  a  state  of  internal  strife, 
but  will  assuredly  raise  up  external  enemies 
on  its  borders  who  will  seek  its  destruction. 

The  working  masses  and  the  peasants, 
whose  lives  are  in  the  great  whole  honest— 
who  support  themselves  (and  a  good  many 
others  besides)  by  their  own  labour— Aflv^ 
no  quarrel ;  and  they  are  the  folk  who  to-day 
—notwithstanding  lies  and  slanders  galore, 
and  much  of  race-prejudice  and  ignorance- 
stretch  hands  of  amity  and  peace  to  each 
other  wellnigh  all  over  the  world.  It  is  of  the 
modem  moneyed  classes  that  we  may  say 
that  their  life-principle  (that  of  taking  advan- 
tage of  others  and  living  on  their  labour) 
is  essentially  false  ' ;  and  these  are  the  classes 

*  There  is  no  reason  in  itself  why  Commercialism  should 
be  false.  Commerce  and  interchange  of  goods  is  of  course 
a  perfectly  natural  and  healthy  function  of  social  life. 
Indeed,  it  is  a  function  which  should  have  a  most  bene- 


128        THE   HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

which  are  distinctively  the  cause  of  enmities 
in  the  modern  world,  and  which,  as  I  have 
explained  above,  are  able  to  make  use  of  the 
military  class  in  order  to  carry  out  their 
designs.  It  can  only  be  with  the  ending  of 
the  commercial  and  military  classes,  as 
classes,  that  peace  can  come  to  the  world. 
China,  founded  on  the  anti -commercial  prin- 
ciples of  Confucius,  disbanded  her  armies 
a  thousand  years  ago,  and  only  quite  lately 
—under  the  frantic  menace  of  Western 
civilization— felt  compelled  to  reorganize 
them.  She  was  a  thousand  years  before 
her  time.  It  can  only  be  with  the  emergence 
of  a  new  structure  of  society,  based  on  the 
principle  of  solidarity  and  mutual  aid  among 
the  individuals  of  a  nation,  and  so  extending 
to  solidarity  and  mutual  aid  among  nations, 
that  peace  can  come  to  the  Western  world. 
It  is  the  best  hope  of  the  present  war  that, 
like  some  frightful  illness,  it  marks  the  work- 
ing out  of  deep-seated  evils  and  their  ex- 

ficent  influence  in  binding  nations  together.  It  is  when 
that  function  is  perverted  to  private  gain  that  it  becomes 
false.  But  of  course  without  this  perversion  there  would 
be  no  distinctively  commercial  class  with  interests  opposed 
to   those  of  the  community. 


THE    HEALING   OF   NATIONS         129 

pulsion  from  the  social  organism  ;  and  that 
with  its  ending  the  old  false  civilization, 
built  on  private  gain,  will  perish,  crushed 
by  its  own  destructive  forces  ;  and  in  its 
place  the  new,  the  real  culture,  will  arise, 
founded  on  the  essential  unity  of  mankind. 


VII 

PATRIOTISM    AND     INTER- 
NATIONALISM 

Many  Socialists  and  sympathizers  with  the 
Labour  movement  over  the  world  belittle 
Patriotism,  and  seem  to  think  that  by  decry- 
ing and  discouraging  the  love  of  one's 
country  one  will  bring  nearer  the  day  of 
Internationalism . 

I  do  not  agree.  Of  course  v/e  all  know 
there  is  a  lot  of  sham  and  false  Patriotism- 
such  as,  for  instance,  Pressmongers  magnify 
and  make  use  of  in  order  to  sell  their  papers, 
or  such  as  comfortable,  well-to-do  folk  with 
big  dividends  do  so  heartily  encourage 
among  the  poorer  classes,  who  can  thus  be 
persuaded  to  fight  for  them  ;  we  know,  in- 
deed, that  there  is  a  good  deal  of  very  mean 
and    unworthy    Patriotism— the    flag-waving 

variety;  for  instance,   which  we  saw  in  the 

130 


PATRIOTISM— INTERNATIONALISM     131 

Boer  war— exultant  over  a  small  nation  of 
farmers  defending  their  homes,  and  whipped 
up  deliberately  by  a  commercial  gang  for 
their  own  purposes  ;  or  the  narrow-minded, 
lying,  canting  variety  which  blinds  a  people 
to  its  own  faults,  and  credits  itself  with  all 
the  moral  virtues,  while  at  the  same  time  it 
gloats  over  every  defamation  of  the  enemy. 
There  is  a  good  deal  of  that  variety  in  the 
present  war.  And  it  is  easy  to  understand 
that  many  people,  sick  of  that  sort  of 
Patriotism,  would  go  straight  for  a  ready- 
made  denial  of  all  frontiers  and  boundaries. 
Still,  allowing  to  the  full  all  that  can  be 
said  in  the  above  direction,  one  must  admit 
also  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  a  true 
Patriotism,  and  I  do  not  see  why— however 
socialist  or  cosmopolitan  we  may  be — we 
should  not  recognize  what  is  an  obvious  fact. 
There  is  a  love  of  one's  own  country— a 
genuine  attachment  to  and  preference  for 
it—"  in  spite  of  all  temptations  to  belong 
to  other  nations  "—which  after  all  is  very 
natural,  and  on  the  whole  a  sound  and 
healthy  thing.  There  may  be  some  people 
whose  minds  are  so  lofty  that  to  them  all 
peoples    and    races    are    alike    and    without 


132        THE   HEALING  OF   NATIONS 

preference  ;  but  one  knows  that  the  vast  multi- 
tudes of  our  mortal  earth  are  not  made  like 
that.  "  If  a  man  love  not  his  brother  whom 
he  hath  seen,  how  shall  he  love  God  whom 
he  hath  not  seen  ?  "  It  is  certainly  easier  and 
more  natural  to  make  an  effort  and  a  sacrifice 
for  the  sake  of  your  own  countrymen  whom 
you  know  so  well  and  with  whom  you  are 
linked  by  a  thousand  ties  than  for  the  sake 
of  foreigners  who  are  little  more  than  a 
name— however  worthy  you  may  honestly 
believe  the  latter  to  be.  It  is  more  obvious 
and  instinctive  for  a  man  to  work  for  his 
own  family  than  to  give  his  services  to  his 
municipality  or  his  county  council.  Charity 
begins  at  home,  and  the  wider  spirit  of 
human  love  and  helpfulness  which  passes 
beyond  the  narrow  bounds  of  the  family 
hearth  has  perhaps  to  find  an  intermediate 
sphere  before  it  can  unfold  itself  and  expand 
in  the  great  field  of  Humanity  among  all 
colours  and  races. 

Personally,  I  am  probably  more  Inter- 
national by  temperament  than  Patriotic.  I 
feel  a  strange  kinship  and  intimacy  with  all 
sorts  of  queer  and  outlandish  races— Chinese, 
Egyptian,      Mexican,      or      Polynesian— and 


PATRIOTISM— INTERNATIONALISM     133 

always  a  slight  but  persistent  sense  of 
estrangement  and  misapprehension  among 
my  own  people.  Flag-waving  certainly,  does 
not  stir  me.  Still,  I  feel  that,  whatever  one's 
country  may  be,  the  love  of  it  has  value 
and  is  not  to  be  scoffed  at.  The  Nation 
is  bigger  than  the  Parish ;  and  to  a 
man  of  limited  outlook  it  is  a  means  of 
getting  him  out  of  his  own  very  narrow  and 
local  circle  of  life ;  to  rob  him  of  that 
in  order  to  jump  him  into  a  cosmopolitan 
attitude  (which  to  him  may  be  quite  empty 
and  arid)  is  a  mistake.  It  is  easy  enough 
to  break  the  shell  for  the  growing  chick, 
but  if  you  break  it  too  soon  your  chick,  when 
hatched,  will  be  dead. 

If  you  look  at  the  great  majority  of  those 
who  are  enthusing  just  now  about  our 
country  and  patriotically  detesting  the  Ger- 
mans, you  will  see  that  notwithstanding  lies 
and  slanders  and  cant  galore,  and  much  of 
conceit  and  vanity,  their  patriotism  is  pull- 
ing them  together  from  one  end  of  Britain  to 
another,  causing  them  to  help  each  other  in 
a  thousand  ways,  urging  them  to  make  sacri- 
fices for  the  common  good,  helping  them  to 
grow    the    sinews    and    limbs    of    the    body 


134        THE    HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

politic,  and  even  the  wings  which  will  one 
day  transport  that  body  into  a  bigger  world. 
Really,  I  think  we  ought  to  be  very  grate- 
ful to  the  Germans  for  doing  all  this  for  us  ; 
and  the  Germans  ought  to  be  grateful  to  us 
for  an  exactly  similar  reason.  You  will  see 
plainly  enough  that  the  great  majority  of 
those  who  are  at  this  moment  giving  their 
thoughts  and  lives  for  their  countrymen  and 
neighbours  either  in  Germany  or  in  England 
could  not  by  any  manner  of  possibility  be 
expected  to  act  with  similar  self-surrender 
and  enthusiasm  in  an  International  cause. 
They  are  not  grown  to  that  point  of  develop- 
ment yet,  and  it  is  better  that  they  should 
learn  helpfulness  and  brotherhood  within 
somewhat  narrow  bounds  than  perhaps  not 
learn  these  things  at  all  in  the  open  and 
indiscriminate  field  of  universal  equality. 
After  all,  to  stimulate  love  and  friendship 
there  is  nothing  like  a  common  enemy  ! 

It  is  an  old  story  and  an  old  difficulty. 
There  comes  a  time  when  every  institution 
of  social  life  becomes  rotten  and  diseased 
and  has  to  be  removed  to  make  way  for 
the  new  life  which  is  expanding  behind  it. 
Broadly    speaking,    we    may    say    that    the 


PATRIOTISM— INTERNATIONALISM    135 

institution  of  Patriotism  is  approaching  this 
period— at  any  rate  over  Western  Europe. 
The  outlines  of  an  International  life  are 
becoming  clearly  visible  behind  it. 

What  we  have  to  do  is  to  help  on  that 
international  life  and  spirit  to  our  best,  and 
certainly  clear  out  a  lot  of  sham  patriotism 
that  stands  in  its  way ;  but  this  has  to  be 
done  with  discrimination  and  a  certain  tact. 
People  must  be  made  to  see  that  "  my  coun- 
try, right  or  wrong,"  is  not  the  genuine 
article.  They  must  be  made  to  understand 
how  easily  this  sort  of  slapdash  sentiment 
throws  them  into  the  hands  of  scheming 
politicians  and  wire-pullers  for  sinister  pur- 
poses—how readily  it  can  be  made  use  of 
directly  it  has  become  a  mere  unreasoning 
instinct  and  habit.  If  a  war  is  wanted,  or 
conscription,  or  a  customs  tariff— it  may  be 
merely  to  suit  the  coward  fears  of  autocratic 
rulers,  or  the  selfish  interests  of  some  group 
of  contractors  or  concession-hunters— all  that 
the  parties  concerned  have  to  do  is  to  play 
the  patriotic  stop,  and  they  stand  a  good 
chance  of  getting  what  they  want.  Just  now 
there  is  a  good  bit  of  fleecing  going  on  in 
this    fashion — both    of    the    public   and    the 


136        THE   HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

wage-workers.  Even  in  its  more  healthy 
forms,  when  delayed  in  too  long,  patriotism 
easily  becomes  morbid  and  delays  also  the 
birth  of  the  larger  spirit  which  is  waiting 
behind  it.  The  Continental  Socialists  com- 
plain that  their  cause  has  hitherto  made  little 
progress  in  Alsace-Lorraine  and  Poland  for 
the  simple  reason  that  political  circumstances 
have  over-accentuated  the  patriotic  devotion 
in  both  these  regions. 

Thus  we  have  to  push  on  with  discrimina- 
tion. Always  we  have  to  remember  that  the 
wide,  free  sense  of  equality  and  kinship 
which  lies  at  the  root  of  Internationalism  is 
the  real  goal,  and  that  the  other  thing  is 
but  a  step  on  the  way,  albeit  a  necessary 
step.  Always  we  have  to  press  on  towards 
that  great  and  final  liberation— the  realization 
of  our  common  humanity,  the  recognition  of 
the  same  great  soul  of  man  slumbering  under 
all  forms  in  the  heart  of  all  races— the  one 
guarantee  and  assurance  of  the  advent  of 
World -peace. 

That  we  are  verging  rapidly  towards  some 
altered  perspective  I  quite  believe  ;  and  the 
day  is  coming  when  in  the  social  and  political 
spheres  International  activity  will  make  ex- 


PATRIOTISM— INTERNATIONALISM     137 

cessive  patriotism  seem  somewhat  ridiculous 
—as,  in  fact,  it  has  already  done  in  the 
spheres  of  Science  and  Industry  and  Art. 
Still,  I  also  do  not  see  any  reason  why  the 
two  tendencies  should  not  work  side  by  side. 
The  health  of  local  organs  and  members 
in  the  human  body  is  by  no  means  incom- 
patible with  the  health  of  the  whole  or- 
ganism, and  we  may  understand  the  great 
map  of  Humanity  all  the  better  for  its  being 
differently  coloured  in  different  parts. 


VIII 

THE    PSYCHOLOGY   OF.   WAR   AND 
RECRUITING 

November^  1914- 

I  SOMETIMES  think  the  country-folk  round 
about  where  I  live  the  most  sensible 
people  I  know.  They  say  with  regard 
to  the  War — or  said  at  its  outset :  "  What 
are  they  fighting  about?  /  can't  make 
out,  and  nobody  seems  to  know.  What 
I've  seen  o'  the  Germans  they're  a  decent 
enough  folk — much  like  ourselves.  If 
there's  got  to  be  fightin',  why  don't  them 
as  makes  the  quarrel  go  and  fight  wi'  each 
other?  But  killing  all  them  folk  that's  got 
no  quarrel,  and  burnin'  their  houses  and 
farms,  and  tramplin'  down  all  that  good 
corn— and  all  them  brave  men  dead  what  can 
never  live  again— its  scandalous,   I   say." 

This  at  the  outset.     But  afterwards,  when 

138 


PSYCHOLOGY   OF   RECRUITING      139 

tKe  papers  had  duly  explained  that  the 
Ge.  lans  were  mere  barbarians  and  savages, 
bent  on  reducing  the  whole  world  to  military 
slavery,  they  began  to  take  sides  and  feel 
there  was  good  cause  for  fighting.  Mean- 
while almost  exactly  the  same  thing  was 
happening  in  Germany,  where  England  was 
being  represented  as  a  greedy  and  deceitful 
Power,  trying  to  boss  and  crush  all  the  other 
nations.  Thus  each  nation  did  what  was 
perhaps,  from  its  own  point  of  view,  the 
most  sensible  thing  to  do^ persuaded  itself 
that  it  was  fighting  in  a  just  and  heroic 
cause,  that  it  was  a  St.  George  against  the 
Dragon,  a  David  out  to  slay  Goliath. 

The  attitude  of  the  peasant,  however,  or 
agriculturist,  all  over  the  world,  is  the  same. 
iHe  does  not  deal  in  romantic  talk  about 
St.  George  and  the  Dragon.  He  sees  too 
clearly  the  downright  facts  of  life.  He  has 
no  interest  in  fighting,  and  he  does  not  want 
to  fight.  Being  the  one  honest  man  in  the 
community— the  one  man  who  creates,  not 
only  his  own  food  but  the  food  of  others 
besides,  and  who  knows  the  value  of  his 
work,  he  perceives  without  illusion  the 
foolery  of  War,  the  hideous  waste  of  it,  the 


I40        THE    HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

shocking  toll  of  agony  and  loss  which  it 
inflicts— and  if  left  to  himself  would  as  a 
rule  have  no  hand  in  it.  It  is  only 
occasionally— when  ground  down  beyond  en- 
durance by  the  rent-racking  classes  above 
him,  or  threatened  beyond  endurance  by 
an  enemy  from  abroad,  that  he  turns 
his  reaping-hook  into  a  sword  and  his 
muck -fork  into  a  three -pronged  bayonet, 
exchanges  his  fowling-piece  for  a  rifle,  and 
fights  savagely  for  his  home  and  his  bit  of 
a  field. 

England,  curiously  enough,  is  almost  the 
only  country  in  the  world  where  the  peasant 
or  ordinary  field-worker  has  no  field  of  his 
own  I  ;  and  I  find  that  in  the  villages  and 
among  the  general  agricultural  population 
there  is  even  now  but  little  enthusiasm  for 

*  In  Servia,  for  instance,  which  many  folk  doubtless 
regard  as  a  benighted  country,  more  than  four-fifths  of  the 
people  are  peasant  farmers  and  cultivate  lands  belonging 
to  their  own  families.  "  These  holdings  cannot  be  sold  or 
mortgaged  entire  ;  the  law  forbids  the  alienation  for  debt 
of  a  peasant's  cottage,  his  garden  or  courtyard,  his  plough, 
the  last  few  acres  of  his  land,  and  the  cattle  necessary  for 
working  his  farm."  [Encycl.  Brit.]  In  19 lo  there  were 
altogether  five  himdred  agricultural  co-operative  societies 
in  Servia. 


PSYCHOLOGY   OF   RECRUITING      141 

the  present  war— though  the  raid  on  our 
coasts  at  Scarborough  and  other  places 
certainly  did  something  to  stimulate  it. 
Partly  this  is,  as  I  have  said,  because  the 
agricultural  worker  knows  that  his  work  is 
foundational,  and  that  nothing  else  is  of 
importance  compared  with  it.  [At  this 
moment,  for  instance,  there  are  peasants  in 
Belgium  and  Northern  France  ploughing  and 
sowing,  and  so  forth,  actually  close  to  the 
trenches  and  between  the  fighting  lines.] 
Partly  it  is  because  in  England,  alas  !  the 
countryman  has  so  httle  right  or  direct  in- 
terest in  the  soil.  One  wonders  sometimes 
why  he  should  feel  any  enthusiasm.  Why 
should  men  want  to  fight  for  their  land  when 
they  have  no  land  to  fight  for— when  the 
most  they  can  do  is  to  die  at  the  foot  of  a 
trespass-board,  singing,  "  Britons  never, 
never  shall  be  slaves  !  " 

If  the  War  is  ever  finished,  surely  one  of 
the  first  things  to  be  insisted  on  afterwards, 
with  regard  to  England,  must  be  the  settle- 
ment of  the  actual  people  (not  the  parasites) 
on  the  land.  Else  how,  after  all  that  they 
have  gone  through,  can  it  be  expected  that 
they  will  ever  again  "  fight  for  their  coun- 


142        THE   HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

try  "  ?  But  that  this  vast  landless  population 
in  the  villages  and  country  districts— hunger- 
ing as  it  is  for  some  sure  tenure  and  interest 
in  the  soil— should  actually,  as  now,  be 
berated  and  scolded  by  superior  persons  of 
the  "  upper "  classes,  and  threatened  with 
conscription  if  it  does  not  "  come  forward  " 
more  readily,  is  a  spectacle  sufficient  to 
gratify  the  most  hardened  cynic. 

Certainly  it  is  remarkable  that  such  num- 
bers of  the  great  working  masses  of  this 
country  (including  villagers)  should  come 
forward  in  connexion  with  the  war,  and 
join  the  standard  and  the  ranks  of  fighting 
men— as  they  do— and  it  is  a  thing  for  which 
one  must  honour  them.  But  in  that  matter 
there  are  not  a  few  considerations  to  be  kept 
in  mind. 

In  the  first  place  a  large  number  are  not 
really  very  enthusiastic,  but  simply  join 
because  pressure  to  do  so  is  put  upon  them 
by  their  "  masters."  The  press-gangs  of 
old  exist  no  longer,  but  substitutes  for  them 
revive  in  subtler  form.  Many  large  land- 
lords, for  instance,  have  given  notice  to  a 
percentage  of  their  gamekeepers,  gardeners, 
park  employees,  and  the  like,  to  the  effect 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  RECRUITING     143 

that  their  services  are  no  longer  required,  but 
that  if  they  enlist  in  the  ranks  now  they  will 
be  reinstated  in  their  masters'  service  again 
when  the  war  is  over  ("if  still  alive  "  is, 
we  presume,  understood).  Large  numbers 
of  manufacturing  and  other  firms  have 
notified  their  workmen  and  clerks  in  similar 
terms.  This  means  pretty  serious  economic 
pressure.  A  man  in  the  prime  of  life,  sud- 
denly ousted  from  his  job,  and  with  no 
prospect  either  of  finding  a  similar  job  else- 
where or  of  learning  any  new  one,  is  in  a 
pretty  fix.  His  only  certain  refuge  lies  in 
the  fact  that  he  can  be  taught  to  use  a 
rifle  in  a  few  weeks  ;  and  in  a  few  weeks 
perhaps  it  becomes  clear  to  him  that  to 
accept  that  offer  and  the  pay  that  goes  with 
it— poor  as  it  is— is  his  only  chance. 

There  are  others,  again— perhaps  a  very 
large  number— who  do  not  care  much  about 
the  war  in  itself,  and  probably  have  only 
the  vaguest  notion  of  what  it  is  all  about, 
but  for  them  to  join  the  ranks  means  ad- 
venture, comradeship,  the  open  air— all  fas- 
cinating things  ;  and  they  hail  the  prospect 
with  joy  as  an  escape  from  intolerable 
dullness— from  the  monotony  of  the  desk  and 


144        THE   HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

the  stuffy  office,  from  the  dreary  round  and 
mechanical  routine  of  the  factory  bench, 
from  the  depressing  environment  of  "  home  " 
and  domestic  s.qualor. 

I  must  confess— though  I  have  no  general 
prejudice  in  favour  of  war— that  I  have  been 
much  struck,  since  the  outbreak  of  the 
present  one,  by  the  altered  look  of  crowds 
of  young  men  whom  I  personally  know— 
who  are  now  drilling  or  otherwise  preparing 
for  it.  The  gay  look  on  their  faces,  the 
blood  in  their  cheeks,  the  upright  carriage 
and  quick,  elate  step— when  compared  with 
the  hang-dog,  sallow,  dull  creatures  I  knew 
before— all  testify  to  the  working  of  some 
magic  influence. 

As  I  say,  I  do  not  think  that  this  influence 
in  most  cases  has  much  to  do  with  en- 
thusiasm for  the  "  cause  "  or  any  mere  lust 
of  "  battle  "  (happily  indeed  for  the  most 
part  they  do  not  for  a  moment  realize  what 
modern  battle  means).  It  is  simply  escape 
from  the  hateful  conditions  of  present-day 
commercialism  and  its  hideous  wage-slavery 
into  something  like  the  normal  life  of  young 
manhood— a  life  in  the  open  under  the  wide 
sky,  blood -stirring  enterprise,  risk  if  you  will. 


PSYCHOLOGY   OF   RECRUITING      14S 

co-operation  and  camaraderie.  These  are 
the  inviting,  beckoning  things,  the  things 
which  swing  the  balance  down— even  though 
hardships,  low  pay,  and  high  chances  of 
injury  and  death  are  thrown  in  the  opposite 
scale. 

Nevertheless,  and  despite  these  other  con- 
siderations, there  does  certainly  remain,  in 
this  as  in  other  wars,  a  fair  number  of  men 
among  those  who  enlist  who  are  bond  fide 
inspired  by  some  Ideal  which  they  feel  to 
be  worth  fighting  for.  It  may  be  Patriotism 
or  love  of  their  country ;  it  may  be  "to 
put  down  militarism  "  ;  it  may  be  Religion 
or  Honour  or  what  not.  And  it  is  fine  that 
it  should  be  so.  They  may  in  cases  be 
deluded,  or  mistaken  about  facts  ;  the  ideal 
they  fight  for  may  be  childish  (as  in  the 
mediaeval  Crusades)  ;  still,  even  so  it  is  fine 
that  people  should  be  willing  to  give  their 
lives  for  an  idea— that  they  should  be  capable 
of  being  inspired  by  a  vision.  Humanity  has 
at  least  advanced  as  far  as  that. 

I  suppose  patriotism,  or  love  of  country — 
when  it  comes  to  its  full  realization,  as  in 
the  case  of  invasion  by  an  enemy,  is  the  most 
powerful    and    tremendous    of    such    ideals, 

10 


146        THE   HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

sweeping  everything  before  it.  It  represents 
something  ingrained  in  the  blood.  In  that 
case  all  the  other  motives  for  fighting- 
economic  or  what  not — disappear  and  are 
swallowed  up.  Material  life  and  social  con- 
ditions under  a  German  government  might 
externally  be  as  comfortable  and  prosperous 
as  under  our  own,  but  for  most  of  us  some- 
thing in  the  soul  would  wither  and  sicken 
at  the  thought. 

Anyhow,  whatever  the  motives  may  be 
which  urge  individuals  into  war— whether 
sheer  necessity  or  patriotism,  or  the  prospect 
of  wages  or  distinction,  or  the  love  of  ad- 
venture—a nation  or  a  people  in  order  to 
fight  must  have  a  "  cause  "  to  fight  for,  some- 
thing which  its  public  opinion,  its  leaders, 
and  its  Press  can  appropriate— some  phrase 
which  it  can  inscribe  on  its  shield  :  be  it 
"  Country  "  or  "  God  "  or  "  Freedom  from 
Tyranny,"  or  "  Culture  versus  Barbarism." 
It  must  have  some  such  cry,  else  obviously  it 
could  not  fight  with  any  whole-heartedness 
or  any  force. 

The  thing  is  a  psychological  necessity. 
Every  one,  when  he  gets  into  a  quarrel, 
justifies  himself  and  accuses  the  other  party. 


PSYCHOLOGY   OF   RECRUITING      147 

'He  puts  his  own  conduct  in  an  ideal  light, 
and  the  conduct  of  his  opponent  in  the 
reverse  I  Doubtless  if  we  were  all  angels 
and  could  impartially  enter  into  all  the 
origins  of  the  quarrel,  we  should  not  fight, 
because  to  "  understand  "  would  be  to  "  for- 
give ",;  but  as  we  have  not  reached  that 
stage,  and  as  we  cannot  even  explain  why 
we  are  quarrelling— the  matter  being  so 
complex— we  are  fain  to  adopt  a  phrase  and 
fight  on  the  strength  of  that.  It  is  useless 
to  call  this  hypocrisy.  It  is  a  psychological 
necessity.  It  is  the  same  necessity  which 
makes  a  mistress  dismiss  her  maid  on  the 
score  of  a  broken  teapot,  though  really  she 
has  no  end  of  secret  grievances  against  her  ; 
or  which  makes  the  man  of  science  condense 
the  endless  complexity  of  certain  physical 
phenomena  into  a  neat  but  lying  formula 
which  he  calls  a  Law  of  Nature.  He  could 
not  possibly  give  all  the  real  facts,  and  so 
he  uses  a  phrase. 

In  war,  therefore,  each  nation  adopts  a 
motto  as  its  reason  for  fighting.  Sometimes 
the  two  opposing  nations  both  adopt  the 
same  motto  !  England  and  Germany  both 
inscribe  on  their  banners  :    "  Culture  versus 


148        THE   HEALING   OF    NATIONS 

Barbarism."  Each  believes  in  its  own  good 
faith,  and  each  accuses  the  other  of 
hypocrisy. 

In  a  sense  this  is  all  right,  and  could  not 
be  better.  It  does  not  so  much  matter  which 
is  really  the  most  cultured  nation^  England  or 
Germany,  as  that  each  should  really  believe 
that  it  is  fighting  in  the  cause  of  Culture. 
Then,  so  fighting  for  what  it  knows  to  be  a 
good  cause,  the  wounds  and  death  endured 
and  the  national  losses  and  depletion  are  not 
such  sad  and  dreadful  things  as  they  at 
first  appear.  They  liberate  the  soul  of  the 
individual ;  they  liberate  the  soul  of  the 
nation.  They  are  sacrifices  made  for  an 
ideal ;  and  (provided  they  are  truly  such) 
the  God  within  is  well-pleased  and  comes 
one  step  nearer  to  his  incarnation.  What- 
ever inner  thing  you  make  sacrifices  for,  the 
same  will  in  time  appear  visibly  in  your 
life— blessing  or  cursing  you.  Therefore, 
beware  1  and  take  good  care  as  to  what 
that  inner  thing  really  is. 

Such  is  the  meaning  of  the  use  of  a  phrase 
or  "  battle-cry  "  ;  but  we  have,  indeed,  to 
be  on  our  guard  against  how  we  use  it.  It 
can   so   easily   become   a   piece   of  cant   or 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF   RECRUITING      149 

hypocrisy.  It  can  so  easily  be  engineered 
by  ruling  cliques  and  classes  for  their  own 
purposes— to  persuade  and  compel  the  people 
to  fight  their  battles.  The  politicians  get 
us  (for  reasons  which  they  do  not  explain) 
into  a  nice  little  entanglement— perhaps  with 
some  tribe  of  savages,  perhaps  with  a  great 
European  Power ;  and  before  the  nation 
knows  where  it  is  it  finds  itself  committed 
to  a  campaign  which  may  develop  and 
become  a  serious  war.  Then  there  is  no 
alternative  but  for  Ministers  to  repair  to  a 
certain  Cabinet  where  the  well-dried  formulas 
they  need  are  kept  hanging,  and  select  one 
for  their  use.  It  may  be  "  Women  and 
Children,"  or  it  may  be  "  Immoral  Savages," 
or  it  may  be  "  Empire,"  or  it  may  be  "  Our 
•Word  of  Honour."  Having  selected  the 
right  one,  and  duly  displayed  and  advertised 
it,  they  have  little  difficulty  in  making  the 
nation  rise  to  the  bait,  and  fight  whatever 
battles  they  desire. 

Since  the  early  beginnings  of  the  human 
race  we  can  perceive  the  same  processes 
in  operation.  We  can  almost  guess  the 
grade  of  advancement  reached  among  primi- 
tive   tribes   by   simply   taking  note   of   their 


I50        THE   HEALING  OF   NATIONS 

totems.  These  were  emblems  of  the  things 
which  held  the  mind  of  the  tribe,  as 
admirable  or  terrible,  with  which  it  was 
proud  to  identify  itself— the  fox,  for  instance, 
or  the  bear,  the  kangaroo,  or  the  eagle. 
To  be  worthy  of  such  ideals  men  fought. 
Later,  every  little  people,  every  knightly 
family,  every  group  of  adventurers,  adopted 
a  device  for  its  shield,  a  motto  for  its  flag, 
a  figure  of  some  kind,  human,  or  more  often 
animal.  Even  the  modern  nations  have  not 
got  much  farther ;  and  we  can  judge  of 
their  stage  of  advancement  by  the  beasts 
of  prey  they  flaunt  on  their  banners  or  the 
deep -throat  curses  which  resound  in  their 
national  anthems. 

But  surely  the  time  has  now  come— even 
with  this  world-war— when  the  great  heart 
of  the  peoples  will  wake  up  to  the  savagery 
and  the  folly  perpetrated  in  their  names. 
The  people,  who,  although  they  enjoy  a 
"  scrap  "  now  and  then,  are  essentially  peace- 
ful, essentially  friendly,  all  the  world  over ; 
who  in  the  intervals  of  slaughter  offer 
cigarettes  to  their  foes,  and  tenderly  dress 
their  enemies'  wounds ;  whose  worst  and 
agelong  sin  it  is  that  they  allow  themselves 


PSYCHOLOGY   OF   RECRUITING      151 

so  easily  to  be  dominated  and  led  by  am- 
bitious and  greedy  schemers— surely  it  is 
time  that  they  should  wake  up  and  throw 
off  these  sham  governments— these  govern- 
ments that  are  three-quarters  class -scheming 
and  fraud  and  only  one-quarter  genuine  ex- 
pressions of  public  spirit— and  declare  the 
heart  of  solidarity  that  is  within  them. 

The  leaders  and  high  priests  of  the  world 
have  used  the  name  of  Christianity  to  bless 
their  own  nefarious  works  with,  till  the  soul 
is  sick  at  the  very  sound  of  the  word  ;  but 
surely  the  time  has  come  when  the  peoples 
themselves  out  of  their  own  heart  will  pro- 
claim the  advent  of  the  Son  of  Man— con- 
scious of  it,  indeed,  as  a  great  light  of 
brotherhood  shining  within  them,  even  amid 
the  clouds  of  race-enmity  and  ignorance,  and 
will  deny  once  for  all  the  gospel  of  world- 
empire  and  conquest  which  has  so  long  been 
foisted  on  them  for  insidiously  selfish  ends. 

An  empire  based  on  brotherhood— a  holy 
human  empire  of  the  World,  including  all 
races  and  colours  in  a  common  unity  and 
equality— yes  I  But  these  shoddy  empires 
based  on  militarism  and  commercialism,  and 
built    up    in    order    to    secure    the    unclean 


152        THE   HEALING  OF   NATIONS 

ascendancy  of  two  outworn  and  effete  classes 
over  the  rest  of  mankind— a  thousand  times 
no  1  That  dispensation,  thank  Heaven  !  is 
past.  "  These  fatuous  empires  with  their 
parade  of  power  and  their  absolute  lack 
of  any  real  policy— this  British  Lion,  this 
Russian  Bear,  these  German,  French,  and 
'American  Eagles— these  birds  and  beasts  of 
prey— with  their  barbaric  notions  of  Greed 
and  War,  their  impossible  armaments,  and 
their  swift  financial  ruin  impending— will  fall 
and  be  rent  asunder.  The  hollow  masks 
of  them  will  perish.  And  the  sooner  the 
better.  But  underneath  surely  there  will  be 
rejoicing,  for  it  will  be  found  that  so  after 
all  the  real  peoples  of  the  earth  have  come 
one  degree  nearer  together— yes,  one  degree 
nearer  together." 


IX 

CONSCRIPTION 

December^  1914- 

While  protesting,  as  I  have  already  done, 
against  forced  military  service,  it  must  still 
be  admitted  that  the  argument  in  favour  of 
it  retains  a  certain  validity  :  to  the  extent, 
namely,  that  every  one  owes  a  duty  of  some 
kind  to  his  own  people,  that  it  is  mean  to 
accept  all  the  advantages  of  citizenship — 
security,  protection,  settled  conditions  of 
life,  and  so  forth — and  still  to  refuse  to 
make  sacrifice  for  one's  country  in  a  time 
of  distress  or  danger.  It  is  difficult  of  course 
for  any  one  to  trace  all  the  threads  and  fibres 
which  have  worked  themselves  into  his  life 
from  his  own  homeland — as  it  is  difficult 
for  a  child  to  trace  all  the  qualities  of  blood 
that  it  owes  to  its  mother  ;  but  there  they 
are,  and  though  some  of  these  native  inheri- 

153 


154        THE   HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

tances  and  conditions  may,  not  really  be  to 
a  man's  liking,  yet  he  can  hardly  refuse  to 
acknowledge  them,  or  to  confess  the  debt  of 
gratitude  that  he  owes  to  the  land  of  his  birth. 
Granting  all  this,  however,  most  fully, 
there  still  remains  a  long  stretch  from  this 
admission  to  that  of  forced  military  service. 
The  drawbacks  to  this  latter  are  many.  In 
the  first  place  compulsion  anyhow  is  bad. 
A  voluntary  citizen  army  may  be  all  right ; 
but  to  compel  a  man  to  fight,  whether  he 
will  or  not — in  violation,  perhaps,  of  his 
conscience,  of  his  instinct,  of  his  tempera- 
ment— is  an  inexcusable  outrage  on  his 
rights  as  a  human  being.  In  the  second 
place  it  is  gross  folly ;  for  a  man  who 
fights  devoid  of  freewill  and  against  his 
conscience,  against  his  temperament,  cannot 
possibly  make  a  good  fighter.  An  army  of 
such  recusants,  however  large,  would  be 
useless ;  and  even  a  few  mixed  with  the 
others  do,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  greatly  lower 
-the  efficiency  of  the  whole  force  associated 
with  them.  In  the  third  place  compulsion 
means  compulsiQn  by  a  Government,  and 
Government,  at  any  rate  to-day,  means  class- 
rule.     Forced  military  service  means  service 


CONSCRIPTION  155 

under  and  subjection  to  a  Class.  That  means 
Wars  carried  on  abroad  to  serve  the  interests, 
often  iniquitous  enough,  of  the  Few  ;  and 
military  operations  entered  into  at  home  to 
suppress  popular  discontent  or  to  confirm 
class-power.  To  none  of  these  things  could 
any  high-minded  man  of  democratic  temper 
consent.  There  are  other  drawbacks,  but 
these  will  do  to  begin  with. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  we  reject  enforced 
militarism  are  we  to  throw  overboard  the 
idea  of  "national  service"  altogether? 

I  think  not.  The  way  out  is  fairly  clear 
and  obvious.  Let  it  be  understood  that 
there  is  such  a  thing  as  national  or  public 
service,  to  which  (within  the  limits  of  indi- 
vidual conscience  and  capacity)  every  one 
is  bound  to  respond.  Let  it  be  understood 
that  at  a  certain  age,  say  from  sixteen  to 
eighteen  (but  the  period  would  no  doubt  be 
a  movable  one)  every  one,  boy  or  girl,  rich 
or  poor,  shall  go  through  a  course  of  training 
fitting  him  or  her  for  healthy  and  effective 
citizenship.  This  would  include  first  of  all 
bodily  exercises  and  drill  (needed  by  almost 
all,  but  especially  in  the  present  day  by 
town   workers),   all    sorts   of   scouting-work, 


156        THE   HEALING  OF   NATIONS 

familiarity  with  Nature,  camp  and  outdoor 
life ;  then  all  kinds  of  elementary  and 
necessary  trades,  like  agriculture  in  some 
form  or  other,  metal -work,  wood -work,  cloth - 
work,  tailoring,  bootmaking ;  then  such 
things  as  rifle -shootinj,  ambulance -work, 
nursing,  cookery,  and  so  on.  Let  it  be 
understood  that  every  one,  male  or  female, 
rich  or  poor,  learned  or  ignorant,  is 
expected  to  qualify — not  in  the  whole  pro- 
gramme, but  first  of  all  and  as  far  as 
humanly  possible  in  the  primary  condition 
of  physical  health  and  development,  and 
then  after  that  in  some  one,  at  any  rate,  of 
the  above-mentioned  or  similar  trades — so 
that  in  case  of  general  need  or  distress  he 
can  do  something  of  use.  That  would  at 
least  be  an  approach  to  a  valuable  and 
reasonable  institution. 

As  things  are  it  is  appalling  to  think  of 
the  abject  futility  and  uselessness  of  vast 
classes  in  all  the  modern  nations  of  to-day 
— but  perhaps  especially  in  our  own  nation. 
Think  of  the  populations  of  our  drawing- 
rooms,  of  our  well-to-do  clubs,  of  our  univer- 
sities, of  our  commercial  and  professional 
offices,    whose    occupations,    whatever    they 


CONSCRIPTION  157 

are,  are  entirely  remote  from  the  direct  needs 
and  meanings  of  life ;  or  again  of  the  vast 
masses  who  inhabit  the  mean  streets  of  our 
great  towns,  ignorant,  ill-grown,  unskilled, 
and  in  a  chronic  state  of  most  precarious 
and  uncertain  employment.  What  would 
these  populations  do  in  any  case  of  national 
crisis — say  in  a  case  of  serious  war  or  famine 
or  huge  bankruptcy  of  trade  or  multitudinous 
invasion  by  Chinese  or  Japanese,  or  of  total 
collapse  of  credit  and  industry?  With  a  few 
brilliant  exceptions  they  would  collapse  too. 
They  could  not  feed  themselves,  clothe  them- 
selves, or  defend  themselves  ;  they  could  not 
build  shelters  from  the  storm,  or  make  tools 
or  weapons  of  any  kind  for  their  own  use  ; 
they  would  be  unable  to  nurse  each  other  in 
illness  or  cook  for  each  other  in  health.  A 
tribe  of  Arabs  or  a  commando  of  Boer 
farmers  would  be  far  more  competent  than 
they. 

But  the  said  deficiency,  which  would  be 
painfully  illustrated  by  a  serious  crisis,  is 
there  equally  in  ordinary  humdrum  times  of 
peace.  The  crippled  and  idiotic  life  which 
would  bring  disaster  then  is  undermining  our 
very  existence  now..     Is  it  not  time  that  a 


IS8        THE   HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

"sensible  nation  should  look  to  it  that  every 
one  of  its  members,  when  adult,  should  at 
least  be  healthy,  well-fed,  and  well-grown, 
and  that  each  should  not  only  be  decently 
developed  in  himself  or  herself,  but  should 
be  capable  of  bearing  a  useful  part  of  some 
kind  in  the  life  of  the  nation?  Is  it  not 
time  that  the  nation  should  place  first  of  all 
on  its  programme  the  creation  of  capable 
and  healthy  citizens  ?  Can  a  nation  be  really, 
effective,  really  strong,  really  secure,  without 
this?  I  do  not  seem  to  doubt  a  large 
willingness  among  our  people  to-day  for 
mutual  service  and  helpfulness — I  believe 
a  vast  number  of  our  young  women  of  the 
well-to-do  type  are  at  this  moment  deeply 
regretting  their  inability  to  do  anything 
except  knit  superfluous  mufflers — but  was 
there  ever  in  the  history  of  the  world  such' 
huge,  such  wide-flooding  incompetence'? 
The  willingness  of  the  well-to-do  classes 
may  be  judged  from  their  readiness  to  come 
forward  with  subscriptions,  their  incompe- 
tence from  the  fact  that  they  have  nothing 
else  to  offer :  that  is,  that  all  they  can  offer 
is  to  set  some  one  else  (by  means  of  their 
money)   to  do   useful   work   in   their   place. 


CONSCRIPTION  159 

They  cannot  themselves  nurse  wounded 
soldiers,  or  make  boots  for  them,  or  build 
huts  or  weave  blankets  ;  they  cannot  help  in 
housing  or  building  schemes,  or  in  schemes 
for  the  reclaiming  and  cultivation  of  waste 
lands  ;  they  cannot  grow  corn  or  bake  bread 
or  cook  simple  meals  for  the  assistance  of  the 
indigent  or  the  aged  or  the  feeble,  because 
they  understand  none  of  these  things  ;  but 
they  can  pay  some  one  else  to  do  them — 
that  is,  they  can  divert  some  of  the  money, 
which  they  have  already  taken  from  the 
workers,  to  setting  the  latter  toiling  again  I 
But  what  use  would  that  be  on  the  day 
when  our  monetary  system  broke  down — as 
it  nearly  did  at  the  commencement  of  this 
war?  What  use  would  it  be  on  some  critical 
day  when  a  hostile  invasion  called  every  com- 
petent man  and  woman  to  do  the  work  of 
defence  absolutely  necessary  at  the  moment  ? 
iWhat  use  would  it  be  in  the  hour  when 
complete  commercial  dislocation  caused 
downright  famine?  Who  would  look  at 
offers  of  money  then?  Could  the  nation 
carry  this  vast  mass  of  incompetents  and 
idlers  on  its  back  then  ;  and  can  it  reasonably 
be  expected  to  do  so  now  ? 


i6o        THE    HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

A  terrible  and  serious  crisis,  as  I  have 
already  said,  awaits  us— even  when  the  War 
is  over — a  crisis  probably  worse  than  that 
which  we  are  passing  through  now.  We 
have  to  remember  the  debts  that  are  being 
piled  up.  If  the  nations  are  staggering  along 
now  under  the  enormous  load  of  idlers  and 
parasites  living  on  interest,  how  will  it  be 
then  ?  Unless  we  can  reorganize  our  Western 
societies  on  a  real  foundation  of  actual  life, 
of  practical  capacity,  of  honest  and  square 
living,  and  of  mutual  help  instead  of  mutual 
robbery,  they  will  infallibly  collapse,  or  pass 
into  strange  and  alien  hands.  Now  is 
the  critical  moment  when  with  the  enormous 
powers  of  production  which  we  wield  it  may 
be  possible  to  make  a  new  start,  and  base  the 
social  life  of  the  future  on  a  generous  recog- 
nition of  the  fellowship  of  all.  How  many 
times  have  the  civilizations  of  the  past, 
ignoring  this  salvation,  gone  down  into  the 
gulf  !  Can  we  find  a  better  hope  for  our 
civilization  to-day? 

It  is  clear,  I  think,  that  any  nation  that 
wants  to  stand  the  shock  of  events  in  the 
future,  and  to  hold  its  own  in  the  vast  flux 
of    racial    and    political    changes    which    is 


CONSCRIPTION  i6i 

coming  on  the  world,  will  have  to  found 
its  life,  not  on  theories  and  views,  or  on 
the  shifting  sands  of  literature  and  fashion, 
but  on  the  solid  rock  of  the  real  material 
capability  of  its  citizens,  and  on  their  willing- 
ness, their  readiness  to  help  each  other — 
their  ingrained  instinct  of  mutual  service. 
A  conscript  army,  forced  upon  us  by  a 
government  and  becoming  inevitably  a  tool 
for  the  use  of  a  governing  class,  we  do  not 
want  and  we  will  not  have  ;  but  a  nation 
of  capable  men  and  women,  who  know  what 
life  is  and  are  prepared  to  meet  it  at  all 
points — who  will  in  many  cases  make  a 
free  gift  of  their  capital  and  land  for 
such  purposes  as  I  have  just  outlined 
—we  must  have.  Personally  I  would  not 
even  here— though  the  need  is  a  crying 
one — advocate  downright  compulsion  ;  but  I 
would  make  these  things  a  part  of  the  recog- 
nized system  of  education,  with  appropriate 
regulations  and  the  strongest  recommenda- 
tions and  inducements  to  every  individual 
to  fall  in  and  co-operate  with  them.  Thus 
in  time  an  urgent  public  opinion  might  be 
formed   which    would   brand   as   disgraceful 

the   conduct  of  any  person  who  refused  to 

II 


i62        THE    HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

qualify  himself  for  useful  service,  or  who, 
when     qualified,     deliberately     refused     to 
respond    to    the    call    for    such    service,    if 
needed.    Under  such  conditions  the  question 
of    military     defence     would     solve     itself. 
Thousands  and  thousands  of  men  would  of 
their  own  free  choice  at  an  early  age  and 
during   a   certain   period  qualify  themselves 
in  military  matters  ;    other  thousands,  men 
and   women,    would    qualify    in    nursing   or 
ambulance    work ;     other     millions,     again, 
would    be    prepared    to    aid    in    transport 
work,  or  in  the  production  of  food,  clothing, 
shelter,  and  the  thousand  and  one  necessaries 
of  life.     No  one  would  be  called  upon  to  do 
work    which    he    had    not    chosen,    no   one 
would  be  forced  to  take  up  an. activity  which 
was  hateful  to  him,  yet  all  would  feel  that 
what   they  could  do  and  did  do  would  be 
helpful  to  the  other  ranks  and  ranges,  and 
would  be  solidaire  with  the  rest  of  the  nation. 
Such    a   nation   would    be    sane   and   pros- 
perous in  time  of  peace,  and  absolutely  safe 
and  impregnable  in  the  hour  of  danger. 


X 


HOW  SHALL  THE  PLAGUE  BE 
STAYED  ? 

Christmas,  19 14. 

People    ask    what    new    arrangements    of 

diplomacy  or  revivals   of  Christianity— what 

alliances,  ententes,  leagues  of  peace,  Hague 

tribunals,  regulation  of  armaments,  weeks  of 

prayer,  or  tons  of  Christmas  puddings  sent 

into  the  enemies'  camps— will  finally  scotch 

this    pestilence    of    war.     And    there    is    no 

answer,  because  the  answer  is  too  close  at 

hand  for  us  to  see  it. 

Nothing  but  the  general  abandonment  of 

the  system  of  living  on  the  labour  of  others 

will  avail.     There  is  no  other  way.     This, 

whether  as  between  individuals  or  as  between 

nations,  is— and  has  been  since  the  beginning 

of  the  world— the  root-cause  of  war.     Early 

and   primitive    wars    were    for    this— to   raid 

163 


i64        THE   HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

crops  and  cattle,  to  carry  off  slaves  on 
whose  toil  the  conquerors  could  subsist ;  and 
the  latest  wars  are  the  same.  To  acquire 
rubber  concessions,  gold-mines,  diamond- 
mines,  where  coloured  labour  may  be  ex- 
ploited to  its  bitterest  extreme ;  to  secure 
colonies  and  outlying  lands,  where  giant 
capitalist  enterprises  (with  either  white  or 
coloured  labour)  may  make  huge  dividends 
out  of  the  raising  of  minerals  and  other 
industrial  products ;  to  crush  any  other 
Power  which  stands  in  the  way  of  these 
greedy  and  inhuman  ambitions— such  are  the 
objects  of  wars  to-day.  And  we  do  not 
see  the  cause  of  the  sore  because  it  is  so 
near  to  us,  because  it  is  in  our  blood.  The 
whole  private  life  of  the  commercial  and 
capitalist  classes  (who  stand  as  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  nations  to-day)  is  founded 
on  the  same  principle.  As  individuals  our 
one  object  is  to  find  some  worker  or  group 
of  workers  whose  labour  value  we  can  appro- 
priate. Look  at  the  endless  columns  of 
stock  and  share  quotations  in  the  daily 
papers,  and  consider  the  armies  of  those 
who  scan  these  lists  over  their  breakfast- 
tables   with   the  one   view  of  finding  some- 


WHAT   WILL   STAY   THE   PLAGUE?    165 

where  an  industrial  concern  whose  slave- 
driven  toilers  will  yield  the  shareholder  5, 
6,  7,  8,  10,  12  per  cent,  on  his  capital. 
Undisguised  and  shameless  parasitism  is  the 
order,  or  disorder,  of  our  days .  The  rapacity 
of  beasts  of  prey  is  in  our  social  life  but 
thinly  veiled— thinly  veiled  indeed  by  a  wash 
of  "  Christian  "  sentiment  and  by  a  network 
of  philanthropic  institutions  for  the  supposed 
benefit  of  the  very  victims  whom  we  have 
robbed. 

Is  it  any  wonder  that  this  principle  of 
internecine  warfare  and  rapacity  which  rules 
in  our  midst,  this  vulgar  greed,  which  loads 
people's  bodies  with  jewels  and  furs  and 
their  tables  with  costly  food,  regardless  of 
those  from  whom  these  comforts  are 
snatched,  should  eventuate  ultimately  in 
rapacity  and  violence  on  the  vast  stage  of 
the  drama  of  nations,  and  in  red  letters 
of  war  and  conflict  written  across  the  con- 
tinents? It  is  no  good,  with  a  pious  snuffle, 
to  say  we  are  out  to  put  down  warfare  and 
militarism,  and  all  the  time  to  encourage 
in  our  own  lives,  and  in  our  Church  and 
.Empire  Leagues  and  other  institutions,  the 
most    sordid    and    selfish    commercialism— 


i66        THE   HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

which  itself  is  in  essence  a  warfare,  only 
a  warfare  of  a  far  meaner  and  more  cowardly 
kind  than  that  which  is  signalized  by  the 
shock  of  troops  or  the  rage  of  rifles  and 
cannon . 

No,  there  is  no  other  way  ;  and  only  by 
the  general  abandonment  of  our  present 
commercial  and  capitalist  system  will  the 
plague  of  war  be  stayed.^ 

^  When  these  hundreds  and  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  men  return  home  after  the  war  is  over,  do  we  expect 
them  to  go  meekly  back  to  the  idiotic  slavery  of  dingy 
offices  and  dirty  workshops  ?  If  we  do  I  trust  that  we 
shall  be  disappointed.  These  men  who  have  fought  so 
nobly  for  their  land,  and  who  have  tasted,  even  under 
the  most  trying  conditions,  something  of  the  largeness 
and  gladness  of  a  free  open-air  life,  will,  I  hope,  refuse 
to  knuckle  down  again  to  the  old  commercialism.  Now 
at  last  arises  the  opportunity  for  our  outworn  Civilization 
to  make  a  fresh  start.  Now  comes  the  chance  to  establish 
great  self-supporting  Colonies  in  our  own  countrysides  and 
co-operative  concerns  where  real  Goods  may  be  manu- 
factured and  Agriculture  carried  on  in  free  and  glad 
and  healthy  industry. 


XI 


COMMERCIAL  PROSPERITY  THE 
PROSPERITY  OF  A  CLASS 

The  economics  of  the  statement  that 
"  commercial  prosperity  means  little  more 
than  the  prosperity  of  a  class  "  '  may  be 
roughly  indicated  by  the  following  con- 
siderations :  International  trade  means 
division  of  labour  among  the  nations. 
There  is  certainly  a  gain  in  such  division, 
a  margin  of  advantage  in  production  ;  and 
that  gain,  that  margin,  is  secured  by  the 
trading  class.     That  is  all. 

Let  us  take  an  example,  and  to  simplify 
the  problem  let  us  leave  out  of  account  those 
exotic  products— like  tea  or  rubber  or  raw 
cotton — which  can  only  be  produced  in  one 
of  the  exchanging  countries.  Let  us  take 
the  case  of  Germany  and  England,  both  pro- 

*  See  p.  50  above. 

167 


i68        THE   HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

ducing   cutlery   and    both    producing    cloth. 
There  is  no  reason  why  each  country  should 
not  produce  both  articles  exclusively  for  its 
own   use ;    and  as   a  matter  of  fact  for  a 
long  time  they  did  so.     But  presently  it  was 
found  that  the  cost  of  production  of  certain 
kinds  of  cutlery  was  less  in  Germany,  and 
the  cost  of  production  of  certain  kinds  of 
cloth    less    in    England.       Merchants    and 
dealers  came  in  and  effected  the  exchange, 
and  so  an  intertrade  has  sprung  up.      The 
effect  of  this  on  the  workers  in  England  is 
simply    to    transfer    a    certain    amount    of 
employment   from  the  cutlery  trade   to  the 
cloth  trade,  and  on  the  workers  in  Germany 
to  transfer  an  equal  amount  from  the  cloth 
trade  to  the  cutlery  trade.     This  may  mean 
dislocation    of    industry ;     but    the     actual 
number  of   persons   employed  or  of  wages 
received   in   both   countries   may   in   such  a 
case  remain  just  the  same  as  before.     There 
is  nothing  in  the  mere  fact  of  exchange  to 
alter   those   figures.      There   is,   however,   a 
gain,  there  is  a  marginal  advantage,  in  the 
exchange ;    and    that    is    collared    by    the 
merchants   and   dealers.      It   is,   in   fact,   in 
order  to  secure  this  margin  that  the  merchant 


COMMERCIAL  PROSPERITY  169 

class  arises.  This  is,  of  course,  a  very 
simple  and  elementary  statement  of  the 
problem,  and  the  exceptions  to  it  or  modi- 
fications of  it  may  be  supplied  by  the  reader. 
But  in  the  main  it  embodies  the  very  obvious 
truth  that  trade  is  created  for  the  advantage 
of  the  trader  (who  often  also  in  modern 
times  is  the  manufacturer  himself).  What 
advantages  may  here  and  there  leak  through 
to  the  public  or  to  the  employee  are  small 
and,  so  to  speak,  accidental.  The  mere  fact 
of  exchange  in  itself  forms  no  index  of 
general  prosperity.  Yet  it  is  often  assumed 
that  it  does.  If,  for  instance,  it  should  hap- 
pen that  the  whole  production  of  cutlery, 
as  between  Germany  and  England,  were 
secured  by  Germany,  and  the  whole  pro- 
duction of  cloth  were  secured  by  England, 
so  that  the  whole  of  these  products  on  each 
side  had  to  be  exchanged,  then  doubtless 
there  would  be  great  jubilation— talk  of  the 
immense  growth  of  oversea  trade  in  both 
countries,  the  wonderful  increase  of  exports 
and  imports,  the  great  prosperity,  and  so 
forth  ;  but  really  and  obviously  it  would  only 
mean  the  jubilation  and  the  prosperity  of 
the  merchants,  the  brokers,  the  railway  and 


170        THE   HEALING  OF  NATIONS 

shipping  companies  of  both  lands.  There 
would  be  an  increase  in  their  riches  (and 
an  increase  in  the  number  of  their 
employees).  It  would  mean  more  merchant 
palaces  in  Park  Lane,  bigger  dividends  on 
the  shares  of  transport  companies  ;  but  after 
that  the  general  position  of  the  manual 
workers  in  both  trades,  the  numbers 
employed,  and  their  rates  of  wages  would 
be  much  as  before.  Prices  also,  as  regards 
the  general  Public,  would  be  but  little 
altered.  It  is  only  because  this  great 
trading,  manufacturing,  and  commercial 
class  has  amassed  such  enormous  wealth  and 
influence,  and  is  able  to  command  the  Press, 
and  social  position,  and  votes  and  repre- 
sentation on  public  bodies  and  in  both 
Houses  of  Parliament,  that  it  succeeds  in 
impressing  the  nation  generally  with  the  idea 
that  its  welfare  is  the  welfare  of  the  whole 
people,  and  its  prosperity  the  advantage  of 
every  citizen.  And  it  is  in  this  very  fact 
that  its  great  moral  and  social  danger  to 
the  community  lies. 

It  must  not  be  thought  (but  I  believe  I 
have  said  this  before)  that  in  making  out 
that   the  commercial   classes   are  largely  to 


COMMERCIAL   PROSPERITY         171 

blame  for  modern  wars  I  mean  to  say  that 
the  present  war,  and  many  previous  ones, 
have  been  directly  instigated  by  commer- 
cial folk.  It  is  rather  that  the  atmosphere 
of  commercial  competition  and  rivalry  auto- 
matically leads  up  to  military  rivalries  and 
collisions,  which  often  at  the  last  moment 
(though  not  always)  turn  out  contrary  to 
the  wishes  of  the  commercial  people  them- 
selves. Also  I  would  repeat  that  it  is  not 
Commerce  but  the  class  interest  that  is  to 
blame.  Commerce  and  exchange,  as  we  know 
in  a  thousand  ways,  have  the  effect  of  draw- 
ing peoples  together,  giving  them  common 
interests,  acquaintance,  and  understanding 
of  each  other,  and  so  making  for  peace. 
The  great  jubilation  during  the  latter 
half  of  the  nineteenth  century— from  1 8  5  i 
onwards — over  world-wide  trade  and  Indus- 
trial Exhibitions,  as  the  heralds  of  the 
world's  peace  and  amity— a  jubilation  voiced 
in  Tennyson's  earlier  Locksley  Hall — was 
to  a  certain  extent  justified.  There  is  no 
doubt  that  the  nations  have  been  drawn 
together  by  intertrading  and  learned  to  know 
each  other.  Bonds,  commercial  and  per- 
sonal,  have   grown  up   between   them,   and 


172        THE   HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

are  growing  up,  which  must  inevitably  make 
wars  more  difficult  in  the  future  and  less 
desirable.  And  if  it  had  been  possible  to 
carry  on  this  intertrade  in  a  spirit  of  real 
friendliness  and  without  grasping  or  greed 
the  result  to-day  would  be  incalculably  great. 
But,  unfortunately,  this  latter  element  came 
in  to  an  extent  quite  unforeseen  and  blighted 
the  prophetic  hopes.  The  second  Xocksley 
Hall  was  a  wail  of  disillusionment.  The 
growth  of  large  mercantile  classes,  intoxi- 
cated with  wealth  and  pursuing  their  own 
interests  apart  from,  and  indeed  largely  in 
opposition  to,  those  of  the  mass -peoples,  de- 
railed the  forward  movement,  and  led  in 
some  of  the  ways  which  I  have  indicated 
above  to  more  of  conflict  between  the 
nations  and  less  of  peace. 

Doubtless  the  growth  of  these  mercantile 
classes  has  to  a  certain  extent  been  inevit- 
able ;  and  we  must  do  them  the  justice  to 
acknowledge  that  their  enterprise  and 
ingenuity  (even  set  in  action  for  their  own 
private  advantage)  have  been  of  consider- 
able benefit  to  the  world,  and  that  their 
growth  may  represent  a  necessary  stage  in 
affairs.      Still,     we     cannot     help     looking 


COMMERCIAL   PROSPERITY         173 

forward  to  a  time  when,  this  stage  having 
been  completed,  and  commerce  between 
nation  and  nation  having  ceased  to  be 
handled  for  mere  private  profit  and  advan- 
tage, the  parasitical  power  in  our  midst 
which  preys  upon  the  Commonweal  will  dis- 
appear, the  mercantile  classes  will  become 
organic  with  the  Community,  and  one  great 
and  sinister  source  of  wars  will  also  cease. 


XII 

COLONIES   AND    SEAPORTS 

There  is  another  point  of  economics  on 
which  there  seems  to  be  some  confusion  of 
mind.  If  mere  extension  of  Trade  is  the 
thing  sought  for,  it  really  does  not  matter 
much,  in  these  days  of  swift  and  inter- 
national transport,  whether  the  outlying 
lands  with  which  the  Trader  deals  or  the 
ports  through  which  he  deals  are  the 
property  of  his  own  nation  or  of  some 
other  nation.  The  trade  goes  on  all  the 
same.  England  certainly  has  colonies  all 
over  the  world  ;  but  with  her  free  trade  and 
open  ports  it  often  happens  that  one  of  her 
colonies  takes  more  German  or  French  goods 
of  a  certain  class  than  English  goods  of 
the  same  class ;  or  that  it  exports  more 
to  Germany  and  France  than  it  does  to 
England.      The   bulk,   for   instance,    of   the 


COLONIES   AND   SEAPORTS  175 

produce  of  our  West  African  colonies  goes, 
in  normal  times,  to  Germany.  German  or 
French  trade  does  not  suffer  in  dealing  with 
English  colonies,  though  English  trade  may 
sometimes  suffer  in  dealing  with  French, 
German  or  other  foreign  colonies  on  account 
of  the  preferential  duties  they  put  on  in 
favour  of  their  own  goods.  Except  for 
these  tariff-walls  and  bounty  systems  (which 
after  all,  on  account  of  their  disturbing  and 
crippling  effect,  seem  to  be  gradually  going 
out  of  fashion)  trade  flows  over  the  world, 
regardless  of  national  barriers,  and  will  con- 
tinue so  to  flow.  It  is  all  a  question  of 
relative  efficiency  and  price.  German  goods, 
owing  to  their  cheapness  and  their  accuracy 
of  construction,  have  of  late  years  been  pene- 
trating everywhere ;  and  to  the  German 
trader,  as  a  pure  matter  of  trade,  it  makes 
no  difference  whether  he  sells  to  a  foreign 
nation  or  a  German  colony. 

It  is  the  same  with  seaports.  Holland 
is  delighted  to  provide  passage  for 
Germany's  exports  and  imports,  and  prob- 
ably does  so  at  a  minimum  cost.  The  Berlin 
manufacturer  or  merchant  would  be  no 
better  off,  as  far  as  trade  conditions  are  con- 


1/6        THE    HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

cerned,  if  Germany  instead  of  Holland  held 
the  mouths  of  the  Rhine.  The  same  with 
a  harbour  like  Salonika.  Germany  or 
Austria  may  covet  dreadfully  its  posses- 
sion ;  and  for  strategic  or  political  reasons 
they  may  be  right,  but  for  pure  trade  pur- 
poses Salonika  in  the  hands  of  the  Greeks 
would  probably  (except  for  certain  initial 
expenses  in  the  enlargement  of  dock  accom- 
modation) serve  them  as  well  as  in  their 
own  hands. 

Of  course  there  are  other  reasons  which 
make  nations  desire  colonies  and  ports. 
Such  things  may  be  useful  for  offensive  or 
defensive  purposes  against  other  nations ; 
they  feed  a  jealous  sense  of  importance  and 
Imperialism  ;  they  provide  outlets  for  popu- 
lation and  access  to  lands  where  the  insti- 
tutions and  customs  of  the  Homeland 
prevail ;  they  supply  financiers  with  a  field 
for  the  investment  of  capital  under  the  pro- 
tection of  their  own  Governments ;  they 
favour  the  development  of  a  national  carry- 
ing trade  ;  and,  above  all,  they  supply  plenti- 
ful official  and  other  posts  and  situations  for 
the  young  men  of  the  middle  and  com- 
mercial classes  ;    but  for  the  mere  extension 


COLONIES   AND   SEAPORTS  177 

and  development  of  the  nation's  general 
trade  and  commerce  it  is  doubtful  whether 
they  have  anything  like  the  importance 
commonly  credited  to  them. 


12 


XIII 
WAR  AND  THE  SEX-  IMPULSE 

January^  1915- 

It  seems  that  War,  like  all  greatest  things 
—like  Passion,  Politics,  Religion,  and  so 
forth— is  impossible  to  reckon  up.  It  belongs 
to  another  plane  of  existence  than  our 
ordinary  workaday  life,  and  breaks  into 
the  latter  as  violently  and  unreasonably 
as  a  volcano  into  the  cool  pastures  where 
cows  and  sheep  are  grazing.  No  argu- 
ments, protests,  proofs,  or  explanations  are 
of  any  avail ;  and  those  that  are  advanced 
are  confused,  contradictory,  and  uncon- 
vincing. Just  as  people  quarrel  most 
violently  over  Politics  and  Religion,  because, 
in  fact,  those  are  the  two  subjects  which 
no  one  really  understands,  so  they  quarrel 
in  Warfare,  not  really  knowing  why^  but  im- 
pelled  by   deep,   inscrutable  forces.      Spec- 

178 


WAR   AND   THE   SEX    IMPULSE       179 

tators  even  and  neutrals,  for  the  same  reason, 
take  sides  and  range  themselves  bitterly,  if 
only  in  argument,  against  each  other. 

But  Logic  and  Morals  are  of  no  use  on 
these  occasions.  They  are  too  thin.  They 
are  only  threads  in  a  vast  fabric.  You 
extract  a  single  thread  from  the  weaving 
of  a  carpet,  and  note  its  colour  and  its  con- 
catenations, but  that  gives  you  no  faintest 
idea  of  the  pattern  of  the  carpet ;  and  then 
you  extract  another,  and  another,  but  you 
are  no  nearer  the  design.  Logic  and  morals 
are  similar  threads  in  the  great  web  of  life. 
iYou  may  follow  them  in  various  directions, 
but  without  effective  result.  Life  is  so  much 
greater  than  either  ;  and  War  is  a  volcanic 
manifestation  of  Life  which  gives  them  little 
or  no  heed. 

There  is  a  madness  of  nations,  as  well 
as  of  individual  people.  Every  one  who 
has  paid  attention  to  the  fluctuations  of 
popular  sentiment  knows  how  strange,  how 
unaccountable,  these  are.  They  seem  to 
suggest  the  coming  to  the  surface,  from  time 
to  time,  of  hidden  waves— groundswells  of 
some  deep  ocean.  The  temper,  the  tempera- 
ment, the  character,  the  policy  of  a  whole 


i8o        THE   HEALING  OF   NATIONS 

nation  will  change,  and  it  is  difficult  to  see 
why.  Sometimes  a  passion,  a  fury,  a 
veritable  mania,  quite  unlike  its  ordinary 
self,  will  seize  it.  There  is  a  madness  of 
peoples,  which  causes  them  for  a  while  to 
hate  each  other  with  bitter  hatred,  to  fight 
furiously  and  wound  and  injure  each  other ; 
and  then  lo  !  a  little  while  more  and  they 
are  shaking  hands  and  embracing  and  swear- 
ing eternal  friendship !  What  does  it  all 
mean? 

It  is  all  as  mad  and  unreasonable  as  Love 
is— and  that  is  saying  a  good  deal  !  In 
love,  too,  people  desire  to  hurt  each  other ; 
they  do  not  hesitate  to  wound  one  another— 
wounding  hearts,  wounding  bodies  even,  and 
hating  themselves  even  while  they  act  so. 
What  does  it  all  mean?  Are  they  trying] 
the  one  to  reach  the  other  at  all  costs— ii 
not  by  embraces,  at  least  by  injuries — each 
longing  to  make  his  or  her  personality  felt, 
to  impress  himself  or  herself  upon  the  other 
in  such  wise  as  never  again  to  be  forgotten. 
Sometimes  a  man  will  stab  the  girl  he  loves, 
if  he  cannot  get  at  her  any  other  way.  Sex 
itself  is  a  positive  battle.  Lust  connects 
itself  only  too  frequently  with  violence  and 
the  spilling  of  blood. 


WAR  AND   THE  SEX   IMPULSE       i8r 

Is  it  possible  that  something  the  same 
happens  with  whole  nations  and  peoples — 
an  actual  lust  and  passion  of  conflict,  a  mad 
intercourse  and  ravishment,  a  kind  of 
generation  in  each  other,  and  exchange 
of  life-essences,  leaving  the  two  peoples 
thereafter  never  more  the  same,  but  each 
strangely  fertilized  towards  the  future?  Is 
it  this  that  explains  the  extraordinary- 
ecstasy  which  men  experience  on  the 
battlefield,  even  amid  all  the  horrors— an 
ecstasy  so  great  that  it  calls  them  again  and 
again  to  return?  "  Have  you  noticed,"  says 
one  of  our  War  correspondents, ^  '*  how  many 
of  our  colonels  fall  ?  Do  you  know  why  ? 
It  is  for  five  minutes  of  life.  It  is  for  the 
joy  of  riding,  when  the  charge  sounds,  at 
the  crest  of  a  wave  of  men." 

Is  it  this  that  explains  the  curious  fact 
that  Wars— notwithstanding  all  their  bitter- 
ness and  brutishness — do  not  infrequently 
lead  to  strange  amalgamations  and  genera- 
tions ?  The  spreading  of  the  seeds  of  Greek 
culture  over  the  then  known  world  by 
Alexander's  conquests,  or  the  fertilizing  of 
Europe  with  the  germs  of  republican  and 
'  H.  M.  Tomlinson,  in  the  Daily  News. 


i82        THE   HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

revolutionary  ideas  by  the  armies  of 
Napoleon,  or  the  immense  reaction  on  the 
mediseval  Christian  nations  caused  by  the 
Crusades,  are  commonplaces  of  history  ;  and 
who— to  come  to  quite  modern  times— could 
have  foreseen  that  the  Boer  War  would  end 
in  the  present  positive  alliance  between  the 
Dutch  and  English  in  South  Africa,  or  that 
the  Russo-Japanese  conflict  would  so  pro- 
foundly modify  the  ideas  and  outlook  of  the 
two  peoples  concerned? 

In  making  these  remarks  I  do  not  for 
a  moment  say  that  the  gains  resulting  from 
War  are  worth  the  suffering  caused  by  it, 
or  that  the  gains  are  not  worth  the  suffering. 
The  whole  subject  is  too  vast  and  obscure 
for  one  to  venture  to  dogmatize  on  it.  I 
only  say  that  if  we  are  to  find  any  order 
and  law  (as  we  must  inevitably  try  to  do) 
in  these  convulsions  of  peoples,  these 
tempests  of  human  history,  it  is  probably 
in  the  direction  that  I  have  indicated. 

Of  course  we  need  not  leave  out  of  sight 
the  ordinary  theory  and  explanation,  that 
wars  are  simply  a  part  of  the  general 
struggle  for  existence— culminating  explosions 
of  hatred   and  mutual   destruction   between 


WAR   AND   THE   SEX    IMPULSE       183 

peoples  who  are  competing  with  each  other 
for  the  means  of  subsistence.  That  there 
is  something  in  this  view  one  can  hardly 
deny  ;  and  it  is  one  which  I  have  already 
touched  upon.  Still,  I  cannot  help  think- 
ing that  there  is  something  even  deeper- 
something  that  connects  War  with  the 
amatory  instinct ;  and  that  this  probably 
is  to  be  found  in  the  direction  of  a  physio- 
logical impact  and  fusion  between  the  two 
(or  more)  peoples  concerned,  which  ferti- 
lizes and  regenerates  them,  and  is  perhaps 
as  necessary  in  the  life  of  Nations  as  the 
fusion  of  cells  is  in  the  life  of  Protozoa,  or 
the  phenomena  of  sex  in  the  evolution  of 
Man. 

And  while  the  Nations  fight,  the  little 
mortals  who  represent  them  have  only  the 
faintest  idea  of  what  is  really  going  on,  of 
what  the  warfare  means.  They  feel  the 
sweep  of  immense  passions  ;  ecstasies  and 
horrors  convulse  and  dislocate  their  minds  ; 
but  they  do  not,  cannot,  understand.  And 
the  dear  creatures  in  the  trenches  and  the 
firing-lines  give  their  lives— equally  beauti- 
ful, equally  justified,  on  both  sides  :  fasci- 
nated, rapt,   beyond  and  beside  themselves, 


i84        THE   HEALING  OF   NATIONS 

as  foes  hating  each  other  with  a  deadly- 
hatred  ;  seized  with  hideous,  furious,  ilerve- 
racking  passions  ;  performing  heroic,  magni- 
ficent deeds,  suffering  untold,  indescribable 
wounds  and  pains,  and  lying  finally,  side 
by  side  (as  not  unfrequently  happens)  on 
the  deserted  battlefield,  reconciled  and 
redeemed  and  clasping  hands  of  amity  even 
in  death. 


XIV 

THE    OVER-POPULATION    SCARE 

Some  cheerful  and  rather  innocent  people 
insist  that  because  of  the  over-population 
difficulty  wars  must  go  on  for  ever.  The 
population  of  the  world,  they  say— or  at  any 
rate  of  the  civilized  countries — is  constantly 
increasing,  and  if  war  did  not  from  time  to 
time  reduce  the  numbers  there  would  soon 
be  a  deadlock.  They  seem  to  think  that 
the  only  way  to  solve  the  problem  is  for 
the  men  to  murder  each  other.  This  says 
nothing  about  the  women,  who,  after  all, 
are  the  chief  instruments  of  multiplication. 
It  may  also  be  pointed  out  that  even  the 
barbaric  method  of  slaughter  is  not  prac- 
ticable. Although  wars  of  extermination 
may  have  now  and  then  occurred  in  the  past 
among  tribes  and  small  peoples,  such  wars 

are  not   considered  decent  nowadays  ;    and 

185 


i86        THE   HEALING  OF   NATIONS 

the  numbers  killed  in  modern  campaigns— 
horribly  "  scientific  "  and  "  efficient  "  as  the 
methods  are— is  such  a  small  fraction  of  the 
population  concerned  as  to  have  no  appre- 
ciable result.  The  population  of  Germany 
is  about  seventy  millions,  and  I  suppose  the 
wildest  anti-Teuton  could  hardly  hope  that 
more  than  a  million  Germans  will  be  actually 
killed  in  the  present  conflict— less  than  i| 
per  cent.— a  fraction  which  would  prob- 
ably soon  be  compensated  by  the  increased 
uxoriousness  of  the  returning  troops. 

No,  War  is  no  solution  for  the  over-popu- 
lation question.  If  that  question  is  a  diffi- 
culty, other  means  must  be  employed.  We 
ask  therefore  :  (i)  Is  it  a  serious  difficulty? 
(2)  If  so,  what  is  the  remedy? 

That  over-population  is  in  certain  locali- 
ties a  serious  difficulty  few  would  deny. 
China,  with  her  four  hundred  millions,  is 
probably  over-populated  ;  that  is,  with  her 
present  resources  in  production  the  popula- 
tion presses  against  the  margin  of  sub- 
sistence and  can  only  just  maintain  itself. 
There  is  evidence  to  show  that  in  the  past 
the  natives  of  some  of  the  Pacific  islands, 
isolated   in   the  great  ocean  and  unable  to 


THE   OVER-POPULATION    SCARE      187 

migrate  to  other  lands,  have  suffered  from 
the  same  trouble.  Britain  is  often  said  to 
be  over-populated ;  but  here  quite  other 
considerations  come  in.  Though  it  might  be 
pleasant  for  many  reasons  to  have  more  land 
at  our  immediate  command,  we  cannot  fairly 
say  that  our  population  presses  against  the 
margin  of  subsistence,  for  the  simple  reason 
that  with  our  immense  powers  of  industrial 
production  and  the  enormous  wealth  here 
yearly  obtained  the  total,  if  evenly  distri- 
buted (anything  like  as  well,  for  instance, 
as  in  China),  would  yield  to  every  man, 
woman,  and  child  in  the  United  Kingdom 
an  ample  affluence.'  The  appearance  here 
of  over-population  arises  from  the  fact  that 
while  the  wage-earners  actually  produce  this 
mass  of  wealth,  two-thirds  of  it  are  taken 
by  the  employers  and  employing  classes. 
Great  portions,  therefore,  of  the  actual  pro- 
ducers or  producing  classes  are  on  the 
margin  of  subsistence,  while  the  rest  of  the 
wealth  of  the  country  is  absorbed  by  those 
trading  and   dividend-consuming   classes  of 

*  Militating  also  against  the  idea  of  over-population 
is  the  fact  that  so  much  of  our  agricultural  land  is 
obviously  uncared  for  and  neglected. 


i88        THE   HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

whom  I  have  spoken  more  than  once  in 
previous  pages.  There  is  over-population 
certainly,  but  it  is  an  over-population  (as 
any  one  may  see  who  walks  through  the 
West  End  of  London  or  the  corresponding 
.quarters  of  any  of  our  large  towns)  of  idlers 
and  futile  people,  who  are  a  burden  to  the 
nation.  With  our  extraordinary  industrial 
system— or  want  of  system— it  commonly 
happens  that  the  abundance  of  ill -paid  or 
unemployed  workers  at  one  end  of  the  social 
scale,  by  reducing  the  rates  of  wages  and 
so  increasing  the  rates  of  dividends,  actually 
creates  a  greater  abundance  of  unemployed 
rich  at  the  other  end  ;  but  neither  excess 
points  in  itself  to  over-population— only  to 
a  diseased  state  of  distribution.  What  we 
really  ought  to  aim  at  creating  is  a  nation 
in  which  every  one  was  capable  of  doing  use- 
ful or  beautiful  work  of  some  kind  or  other 
and  was  gladly  occupied  in  doing  it.  Such  a 
nation  would  be  truly  healthy.  It  would  be 
powerful  and  productive  beyond  all  our 
present  dreams.  But  the  Western  nations  of 
to-day,  with  their  huge  burdens  of  unskilled, 
ill -grown  poor  and  their  huge  burden  of 
incompetent,     feeble    rich— it    is    a    wonder 


THE   OVER-POPULATION   SCARE      189 

that  they  survive.  They  would  not  sur- 
vive a  decade  or  two  if  the  Chinese  or  the 
Japanese  in  their  numbers  were  to  come 
into  personal  and  direct  competition  with 
them. 

If  Britain  is  not  really  at  present  over- 
populated,  the  same  is  probably  even  more 
true  of  Germany.  For  Germany,  with  a 
larger  and  more  fertile  area  in  proportion  to 
her  population,  is  safer  than  we  are  in  the 
matter  of  self-support.  But  again  in 
Germany  the  outcry  of  over -population  has 
arisen,  and  has  arisen  from  the  same  cause 
as  here— namely,  the  rise  of  the  commercial 
system,  the  division  of  the  nation  into  ex- 
tremes of  poverty  and  riches,  and  the  con- 
sequent appearance  of  excess  population  in 
both  directions.  And  this  diseased  state  of 
the  nation  has  led  to  a  fever  of  "  expan- 
sion "  and  has  been  (as  already  said)  one 
of  the  chief  causes  of  the  present  war.  As 
long  as  the  modem  nations  are  such  fools 
as  to  conduct  their  industrial  affairs  in  the 
existing  way  they  will  not  only  be  full  of 
strife,  disease,  and  discord  in  themselves, 
but  they  will  inevitably  .quarrel  with  their 
neighbours. 


I90        THE   HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

All  this,  however,  does  not  prove  that  a 
genuine  over-population  difficulty  may  not 
occur  even  now  in  localities,  and  possibly 
in  some  far  future  time  over  the  whole  earth. 
And  it  may  be  just  as  well  to  consider  these 
possibilities. 

Dismissing  War  and  Disease  as  solutions 
—as  belonging  to  barbarous  and  ignorant 
ages  of  human  evolution— there  remain, 
perhaps,  three  rational  methods  of  dealing 
with  the  question  :  (  i )  the  organization  and 
improvement  of  industrial  production  on 
existing  lands  so  far  as  to  allow  the  support 
of  a  larger  population;  (2)  the  transport 
of  excess  populations  to  new  and  unde- 
veloped lands  (colonization)  ;  (3)  the  limita- 
tion of  families. 

The  first  method  hardly  needs  discussion 
here.  Its  importance  is  too  obvious.  It 
needs,  however,  more  public  discussion  in 
England  than  it  has  hitherto  received.  The 
second  method— operating  at  present  only  in 
a  very  casual  and  unsystematic  way— ought, 
one  would  say,  to  be  very  systematically 
considered  and  dealt  with  by  the  modern 
States.  For  a  nation  to  plant  out  large 
bodies  of  colonists  on  comparatively  unoccu- 


THE   OVER-POPULATION   SCARE      191 

pied  lands,  as  in  Africa  or  Australia  or 
Canada,  in  a  deliberate  and  organized 
fashion,  with  every  facility  towards  co- 
operation and  success,  and  yet  on  the  prin- 
ciple of  leaving  each  colonial  unit  plenty 
of  freedom  and  autonomy,  would  not  be  a 
very  difficult  task,  nor  a  very  expensive  one, 
considering  the  end  in  view.  And  in  such 
a  case  there  would  really  be  no  adequate 
reason  for  jealousy  between  States  having 
colonies  in  the  neighbourhood  of  each  other. 
If  Germany  (or  any  other  country)  wishes 
to  have  a  colony  in  East  Africa  or  West 
Africa,  it  is  really  ridiculous  to  go  to  war 
about  such  a  matter.  Any  peaceful  arrange- 
ment would  be  less  expensive  ;  and,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  a  flourishing  German  (or 
other)  colony  in  the  neighbourhood  of  a 
British  settlement  would  help  to  bring 
prosperity  to  the  latter.  The  two  colonies 
would  benefit  each  other.  It  is  only 
unreasoning  jealousy  which  prevents  people 
understanding  this. 

Finally,  there  is  the  third  method,  of  the 
intentional  limitation  of  families.  Surely  the 
time  has  come  when  blind  and  unlimited 
propagation  among  civilized  and  self-respect- 


192        THE    HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

ing  peoples  must  come  to  an  end.  The  old 
text  "  Blessed  is  he  that  hath  his  quiver 
full  of  them  "  has  ceased  to  have  any  use 
or  application.  Eugenic  and  healthy  con- 
ditions of  child-rearing  and  nurture  demand 
small  families.  The  well-to-do  and  educated 
do  already  limit  their  families  ;  and  for  the 
poorer  classes  to  breed  and  propagate  in- 
definitely is  only  to  play  into  the  hands  of 
the  dividend-hunting  rich  by  increasing  the 
supply  of  cheap  labour,  while  at  the  same 
time  the  general  standard  of  the  population 
becomes  more  and  more  degraded.  It  is 
indeed  a  curious  question  why,  in  the  Press 
and  among  the  official  classes,  every  effort 
to  spread  abroad  the  knowledge  of  how  in 
a  healthy,  humane,  and  eugenic  way  to  limit 
the  size  of  the  family  is  discountenanced. 
Sometimes  one  thinks  that  this  is  done  partly 
in  order  to  encourage  that  said  pullulation 
of  workers  which  is  so  favourable  to  the 
keeping  down  of  wages ;  but,  of  course, 
ancient  reasons  of  ignorance  and  religious 
bias  weigh  also.  In  the  United  States  the 
persecutions  of  Comstockcry  are  worse  than 
here. 

The  aborigines  of  Australia  are  so  ignorant 


THE   OVER-POPULATION   SCARE      193 

that  they  do  not  even  know  that  concep- 
tion arises  from  the  meeting  of  the  male 
and  female  elements.  They  think  that 
certain  bushes  and  trees  are  haunted  by  the 
spirits  of  babies,  which  leap  unawares  into 
the  bodies  of  passing  women.  It  can  be 
imagined  what  evils  and  delusions  spring 
from  such  a  theory.  We  do  not  want  to 
return  to  such  a  period  ;  and  yet  it  would 
seem  that  many  folk  do  not  want  to  go 
forward  from  our  present  condition,  with  all 
Us  evils  and  delusions,  to  something  better 
and  more  intelligent. 

If  the  nations  haven't  the  sense  to  be  able 
(if  they  wish)  to  limit  their  families — short 
of  resorting  to  such  methods  as  War,  Can- 
nibalism, the  spread  of  Disease,  the  ex- 
posure of  Infants,  and  the  like— one  can  only 
conclude  that  they  must  go  on  fighting  and 
preying  upon  each  other  (industrially  and 
militarily)  till  they  gain  the  sense.  Mere 
unbridled  and  irrational  lust  may  have  led 
to  wars  of  extermination  in  the  past.  Love 
and  the  sacrament  of  a  true  and  intimate 
union  may  come  some  day  with  the  era  of 
peace. 


13 


XV 


THE  FRIENDLY  AND  THE  FIGHTING 

INSTINCTS 

January^  1915- 

Fighting  is  certainly  a  deeply  ingrained 
instinct  in  the  human  race — the  masculine 
portion.  In  the  long  history  of  human 
development  it  has  undoubtedly  played  an 
important  part.  It  has  even  (such  is  the 
cussedness  and  contrariety  of  Nature)  helped 
greatly  in  the  evolution  of  love  and  social 
solidarity.  There  is  no  greater  bond  in  early 
stages  between  the  members  of  a  group  or 
tribe  than  the  consciousness  that  they  have 
a  common  enemy. i  It  is  also  obviously  still 
a  great  pleasure  to  a  very  large  proportion 
of  our  male  populations— as,  indeed,  the  fact 

'  And  even  the  hundred  and  one  humane  Associations 

of  to-day  derive  a  great  part  of  their  enthusiasm  and  vitality 

from  fighting  each  other  ! 

194 


FRIENDLY  AND  FIGHTING  INSTINCTS  195 

of  its  being  the  fulfilment  of  a  deep  instinct 
would  lead  us  to  expect.  It  does  not  follow, 
however,  from  these  remarks  that  we  expect 
war  in  its  crudest  form  to  continue  for  ever. 
There  will  come  a  term  to  this  phase  of 
evolution.  Probably  the  impact  and  col- 
lision between  nations — if  required  for  their 
impregnation  and  fecundity — will  come  about 
in  some  other  way. 

If  fighting  is  an  ingrained  instinct,  the 
sociable  or  friendly  instinct  is  equally  in- 
grained. iWe  may,  indeed,  suppose  it  roots 
deeper.  In  the  midst  of  warfare  maddest 
foes  will  turn  and  embrace  each  other.  In 
the  tale  of  Cuchulain  of  Muirthemne  '  he 
(Cuchulain)  and  Ferdiad  fought  for  three 
days  on  end,  yet  at  the  close  of  each  day 
kissed  each  other  affectionately;  and  in  the 
present  war  there  are  hundreds  of  stories 
already  in  circulation  of  acts  of  grace  and 
tejiderness  between  enemies,  as  well  as  the 
quaintest  quips  and  jokes  and  demonstra- 
tions of  sociability  between  men  in  opposing 
trenches  who  "  ought  "  to  have  been  slaying 
each   other.       In    the   Russo-Japanese   War 

'  Put  into  English   by  Lady  Gregory.     (John  Murray, 
6s.  net.) 


196        THE    HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

during  the  winter,  when  military  movement 
was  not  easy,  and  the  enemy  hnes  in  some 
cases  were  very  near  each  other,  the  men, 
Russians  and  Japanese,  played  games  to- 
gether as  a  convenient  and  pleasant  way  of 
passing  the  time,  and  not  unfrequently  took 
to  snowballing  each  other. 

A  friend  of  mine,  who  was  in  that  war, 
told  me  the  following  story.  The  Japanese 
troops  were  attacking  one  of  the  forts  near 
Port  Arthur  with  their  usual  desperate  valour. 
They  cut  zig-zag  trenches  up  the  hillside, 
and  finally  stormed  and  took  a  Russian 
trench  close  under  the  guns  of  the  fort. 
The  Russians  fled,  leaving  their  dead  and 
wounded  behind.  After  the  melee,  when 
night  fell,  five  Japanese  found  themselves 
in  that  particular  trench  with  seven  Russians 
— all  pretty  badly  wounded — with  many 
others  of  course  dead.  The  riflemen  in  the 
fort  were  in  such  a  nervous  state,  that  at  the 
slightest  movement  in  the  trench  they  fired, 
regardless  of  whom  they  might  hit.  The 
whole  party  remained  quiet  during  the  night 
and  most  of  the  next  day.  They  were 
suffering  from  wounds,  and  without  food  or 
water,    but    they    dared    not    move ;     they 


FRIENDLY  AND  FIGHTING  INSTINCTS  197 

managed,  however,  to  converse  with  each 
other  a  little — especially  through  the 
Japanese  lieutenant,  who  knew  a  little 
Russian.  On  the  second  ni^ht  the  fever 
for  water  became  severe.  One  of  the  less 
wounded  Russians  volunteered  to  go  and 
fetch  some.  He  raised  himself  from  the 
ground,  stood  up  in  the  darkness,  but  was 
discerned  from  the  fort,  and  shot.  A  second 
Russian  did  the  same  and  was  shot.  A 
Japanese  did  likewise.  Then  the  rest  lay 
quiet  again.  Finally,  the  darkness  having 
increased  and  the  thirst  and  the  wounds 
being  intolerable,  the  Japanese  lieutenant, 
who  had  been  wounded  in  the  legs  and  could 
not  move  about,  said  that  if  one  of  the 
remaining  Russians  would  take  him  on  his 
back  he  would  guide  the  whole  party  into 
a  place  of  safety  in  the  Japanese  lines. 
So  they  did.  The  Russian  soldier  crawled 
on  his  belly  with  the  Japanese  officer  lying 
on  his  back,  and  the  others  followed, 
keeping  close  to  the  ground.  They  reached 
the  Japanese  quarters,  and  were  immediately 
looked  after  and  cared  for.  A  few  days 
afterwards  the  five  Russians  came  on  board 
the    transport    on    which    my    friend    was 


198        THE   HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

engineer.  They  were  being  taken  as 
prisoners  to  Japan ;  but  the  Japanese 
crew  could  not  do  enough  for  them  in  the 
way  of  tea  and  cigarettes  and  dressing  their 
wounds,  and  they  made  quite  a  jolly  party 
all  together  on  deck.  The  Japanese  officer 
was  also  on  board,  and  he  told  my  friend 
the  story. 

Gallantry  towards  the  enemy  has  figured 
largely  in  the  history  of  War — sometimes 
as  an  individual  impulse,  sometimes  as  a 
recognized  instruction.  European  records 
afford  us  plenty  of  examples.  The  Chinese, 
always  great  sticklers  for  politeness,  used 
to  insist  in  early  times  that  a  warrior  should 
not  take  advantage  of  his  enemy  when  the 
latter  had  emptied  his  quiver,  but  wait  for 
him  to  pick  up  his  arrows  before  going 
on  with  the  fight.  And  in  one  tale  of  old 
Japan,  when  one  Daimio  was  besieging 
another,  the  besieged  party,  having  run  short 
of  ammunition,  requested  a  truce  in  order 
to  fetch  some  more — which  the  besiegers 
courteously  granted  ! 

The  British  officer  who  the  other  day 
picked  up  a  wounded  German  soldier  and 
carried   him  across   into  the   German  lines. 


FRIENDLY  AND  FIGHTING  INSTINCTS  199 

acted  in  quite  the  same  spirit.  He  saw 
that  the  man  had  been  left  accidentally  when 
the  Germans  were  clearing  away  their 
wounded ;  and  quite  simply  he  walked 
forward  with  the  object  of  restoring  him. 
But  it  cost  him  his  hfe  ;  for  the  Germans, 
not  at  first  perceiving  his  intention,  fired 
and  hit  him  in  two  or  three  places.  Never- 
theless he  lifted  the  man  and  succeeded  in 
bearing  him  to  the  German  trench.  The 
firing  of  course  ceased,  and  the  German 
colonel  saluted  and  thanked  the  officer,  and 
pinned  a  ribbon  to  his  coat.  He  returned  to 
the  British  lines,  but  died  shortly  after  of  the 
wounds  received. 

"  lis  sont  superbes,  ces  braves  !  "  said  a 
French  soldier  in  hospital  to  Mrs.  Haden 
Guest,  indicating  the  German  wounded  also 
there.  And  a  dying  German  whispered  to 
her  :  "I  would  never  have  fought  against 
the  French  and  English  had  I  known  how 
kind  they  were.  I  was  told  that  I  was  only 
going  on  manoeuvres  !  "  ^ 

The  French  are  generous  in  the  recogni- 
tion of  bravery.     A  small  company  rushed  a 
Prussian  battery  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the 
'  From  T.  F.'s  Weekly,  November  7,  1914. 


20O        THE    HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

Aisne  and  put  all  the  gunners  out  of  action, 
except  one  who  fought  gamely  to  the  last 
and  would  not  give  in  till  he  was  fairly- 
surrounded  and  made  prisoner.  "  Tu  est 
chic,  tu — tu  est  blen  chic,''  shouted  the  plou- 
p'lous  with  one  accord,  and  shook  him 
cordially  by  the  hand  as  they  led  him  away. 
How  preposterous  do  such  stories  as  these 
make  warfare  appear  ! — and  others,  such  as 
the  two  opposing  forces  tacitly  agreeing  to 
fetch  water  at  the  evening  hour  from  an 
intervening  stream  without  molestation  on 
either  side  ;  or  the  two  parties  using  an  old 
mill  as  a  post-office,  by  means  of  which  letters 
could  pass  between  France  and  Germany  in 
defiance  of  all  decent  war-regulations  !  How 
they  illustrate  the  absolutely  instinctive  and 
necessary  tendency  of  the  natural  man  (not- 
withstanding occasional  bouts  of  fury)  to  aid 
his  fellow  and  fall  into  some  sort  of  under- 
standing with  him  !  Finally  the  fraterniza- 
tions last  Christmas  between  the  opposing 
lines  in  Northern  France  almost  threatened 
at  one  time  to  dissolve  all  the  proprieties 
of  official  warfare.  If  they  had  spread  a 
little  farther  and  lasted  a  little  longer,  who 
knows  what  might  have  happened?     High 


FRIENDLY  AND  FIGHTING  INSTINCTS  201 

politics  might  have  been  utterly  confounded, 
and  the  elaborate  schemes  of  statesmen  on 
both  sides  entirely  frustrated.  Headquarters 
had,  through  the  officers,  to  interfere  and  all 
such  demonstrations  of  amity  to  be  for  the 
future  forbidden.  Could  anything  more 
clearly  show  the  beating  of  the  great  heart 
of  Man  beneath  the  thickly  overlying  husks 
of  class  and  class -government?  When, 
oh  !  when  indeed,  will  the  real  human  crea- 
ture emerge  from  its  age-long  chrysalis? 


XVI 

NEVER    AGAIN  ! 

Like  a  great  cry  these  words  to-day  rise 
from  the  lips  of  the  nations—"  Never 
Again  !  "  Never  before  certainly  have  such 
enormous  masses  of  human  beings  been 
locked  in  deadly  grip  with  each  other  over 
the  earth,  and  never  before,  equally  cer- 
tainly, has  their  warfare  been  so  horrible 
in  its  deliberate  preparation,  so  hideous,  so 
ghastly  in  its  after-effects,  as  to-day.  The 
nations  stand  round  paralysed  with  disgust 
and  despair,  almost  unable  to  articulate  ;  and 
when  they  do  find  voice  it  is  with  the  words 
above  written. 

How  are  we  to  give  effect  to  the  cry? 
Must  we  not  call  upon  the  Workers  of  all 
countries— those  who  are  the  least  respon- 
sible for  the  inception  of  wars,  and  yet  who 

203 


NEVER   AGAIN!  203 

suffer  most  by  them,  who  bear  the  brunt 
of  the  wounds,  the  slaughter,  the  disease, 
and  the  misery  which  are  a  necessary  part 
of  them— to  rise  up  and  forbid  them  for  ever 
from  the  earth  ?  Let  us  do  so  !  Kor  though 
few  may  follow  and  join  with  us  to-day, 
yet  to-morrow  and  every  day  in  the  future, 
and  every  year,  as  the  mass -peoples  come 
into  their  own,  and  to  the  knowledge  of  what 
they  are  and  what  they  desire  to  be,  those 
numbers  will  increase,  till  the  cry  itself  is 
no  longer  a  mere  cry  but  an  accomplished 
fact. 

It  is  a  hopeful  sign  that  not  only  among 
bewildered  onlookers  and  outsiders  but 
among  the  soldiers  themselves  (of  the  more 
civilized  countries)  this  cry  is  being  taken 
up.  Who,  indeed,  should  know  better  than 
they  what  they  are  talking  about?  The 
same  words  are  on  the  lips  at  this  moment 
of  thousands  and  thousands  of  French  and 
English  and  German  soldiers,  i  and  in  no 
faint-hearted  or  evasive  sense,  but  with  the 

^  See  "  A  War-Note  for  Democrats,"  by  H .  M.  Tomlinson 
{English  Review,  December,  19 14).  "This  war  was  bound 
to  come,  and  we've  got  to  finish  it  proper.  No  more  of 
this  bloody  rot  for  the  kids,  an'  chance  it." 


204        THE   HEALING   OF  NATIONS 

conviction  and  indignation  of  experience. 
We  may  hope  they  will  not  be  forgotten 
this  time  when  the  war  is  over. 

The  truth  is  that  not  only  was  this  par- 
ticular war  "  bound  to  come,"  but  (among 
the  civilized  peoples)  the  refusal  of  war  is 
also  bound  to  come.  Two  great  develop- 
ments are  leading  to  this  result.  On  the 
one  hand,  the  soldiers  themselves,  the 
fighters,  are  as  a  class  becoming  infi- 
nitely more  sensitive,  more  intelligent,  more 
capable  of  humane  feeling,  less  stupidly 
"  patriotic "  and  prejudiced  against  their 
enemies  than  were  the  soldiers  of  a  century 
ago— say,  of  the  time  of  Wellington  ;  on  the 
other  hand,  the  horrors,  the  hideousness,  the 
folly,  and  the  waste  of  war  are  infinitely 
greater.  It  is  inevitable  that  these  two  con- 
tradictory movements,  mounting  up  on  oppo- 
site sides,  must  at  last  clash.  The  rising 
conscience  of  Humanity  must  in  the  end  say 
to  the  War-fiend,  "  Get  thee  behind  me, 
Satan  !  "  Never  before  have  there  passed 
over  the  fields  of  Europe  armies  so  intelli- 
gent, so  trained,  so  observant,  so  sensitive 
as  those  to-day  of  Belgium,  France,  England, 
and  Germany.     Some  day  or  other  they  will 


NEVER   AGAIN!  205 

return  to  their  homes  ;  but  when  they  do 
it  will  be  with  a  tale  that  will  give  to  the 
Western  world  an  understanding  of  what  war 
means,  such  as  it  never  had  before. 

All  the  same,  if  the  word  is  to  be 
"  Never  Again  !  "  it  must  come  through  the 
masses  themselves  (from  whom  the  fighters 
are  mainly  drawn)  ;  it  must  be  through  them 
that  this  consummation  must  be  realized.  It 
must  be  through  the  banding  together  and 
determined  and  combined  effort  of  the 
Unions,  local,  national,  and  international, 
and  through  the  weight  of  the  workers'  in- 
fluence in  all  their  associations  and  in  all 
countries.  To  put  much  reliance  in  this 
matter  upon  the  "  classes  "  is  rash ;  for 
though  just  now  the  latter  are  sentimentaliz- 
ing freely  over  the  subject— having  got  into 
nearer  touch  with  it  than  ever  before — yet 
when  all  is  settled  down,  and  the  day  arrives 
once  more  that  theif  interests  point  to  war, 
it  is  only  too  likely  that  they  (or  the  majority 
of  them)  will  not  hesitate  to  sacrifice  the 
masses — unless,  indeed,  the  power  to  do  so 
has   already   departed   from   them. 

And  it  is  no  good  for  us  to  sentimentalize 
on  the  subject.     We  must  not  blink  facts. 


2o6        THE   HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

And  the  fact  is  that  "  it's  a  long  way  "  to 
Never  Again.  The  causes  of  War  must  be 
destroyed  first ;  and,  as  I  have  more  than 
once  tried  to  make  clear,  the  causes  ramify 
through  our  midst ;  they  are  like  the  roots, 
pervading  the  body  politic,  of  some  fell 
disease  whose  outbreak  on  the  surface  shocks 
and  affrights  us.  To  dislodge  and  extirpate 
these  roots  is  a  long  business.  But  there 
is  this  consolation  about  it— that  it  is  a 
business  which  we  can  all  of  us  begin  at 
once,  in  our  own  lives  ! 

Probably  wars  will  still  for  many  a  century 
continue,  though  less  frequent  we  hope. 
And  if  the  people  themselves  want  to  fight, 
and  must  fight,  who  is  to  say  them  Nay? 
In  such  case  we  need  not  be  overmuch 
troubled.  There  are  many  things  worse 
than  fighting  ;  and  there  are  many  wounds 
and  injuries  which  people  inflict  on  each 
other  worse  than  bodily  wounds  and  injuries 
— only  they  are  not  so  plain  to  see.  But  I 
certainly  would  say— as  indeed  the  peasant 
says  in  every  land — "  Let  those  who  begin 
the  quarrel  do  the  fighting  "  ;  and  let  those 
who  have  to  do  the  fighting  and  bear  the 
brunt   of   it    (including   the  women)    decide 


NEVER   AGAIN!  207 

whether  there  shall  be  fighting  or  not.  To 
leave  the  dread  arbitrament  of  War  in  the 
hands  of  private  groups  and  chques  who,  for 
their  own  ends  and  interests,  are  wiUing  to 
see  the  widespread  slaughter  of  their  fellow- 
countrymen  and  the  ruin  of  innumerable 
homes  is  hateful  beyond  words. 


XVII 
THE    TREE    OE    LIFE 

February,  1915. 

Finally,  and  looking  back  on  all  we  have 
said,  and  especially  on  the  Christmas  scenes 
and  celebrations  between  the  trenches  in  this 
war  and  the  many  similar  fraternizations  of 
the  rank  and  file  of  opposing  armies  in 
former  wars,  one  realizes  the  monstrosity 
and  absurdity  of  the  present  conflict— its 
anachronism  and  out-of-dateness  in  the 
existing  age  of  human  thought  and  feeling. 
The  whole  European  situation  resembles  a 
game  of  marbles  played  by  schoolboys.  It 
is  not  much  more  dignified  than  that.  Each 
boy  tries  on  the  quiet  to  appropriate  some  of 
the  marbles  out  of  another  boy's  bag.  From 
time  to  time,  in  consequence,  furious  scrim- 
mages arise— generally   between  two   boys— 

the  others  looking'  on  and  laughing,  knowing 

20S 


THE   TREE   OF    LIFE  209 

well  that  they  themselves  are  guilty  of  the 
same  tricks .  Presently,  in  the  fortunes  of  the 
game,  one  boy — a  little  more  blundering  or 
a  little  less  disguised  than  the  others — lays 
himself  open  to  the  accusations  of  the  whole 
crew.  They  all  fall  upon  him,  and  give  him 
a  good  drubbing  ;  and  even  some  of  them 
say  they  are  punishing  him  for  his  good  ! 
When  shall  we  make  an  end,  once  for  all, 
of  this  murderous  nonsense? 

•However  our  Tommy  Atkinses  have  been 
worked  up  to  fighting  point  by  fears  for  the 
safety  of  old  England,  or  by  indignation  at 
atrocities  actually  observed  or  distantly  re- 
ported ;  however  the  German  soldiers  have 
been  affected  by  similar  fears  and  indigna- 
tions, or  the  French  the  same ;  however 
the  political  coil  has  been  engineered  (as 
engineered  in  such  cases  it  always  is),  and 
whatever  inducements  of  pay  or  patriotism 
have  been  put  in  operation  and  sentiments 
circulated  by  the  Press— one  thing  remains 
perfectly  certain :  that  left  to  themselves 
these  men  would  never  have  quarrelled, 
never  have  attacked  each  other.  One  thing 
is  perfectly  certain  :  that  such  a  war  as  the 
present  is  the  result  of  the  activity  of  govern- 

14 


2IO        THE   HEALING   OF  NATIONS 

ing  cliques  and  classes  in  the  various  nations, 
acting  through  what  are  called  "  Diplo- 
matic "  channels,  for  the  most  part  in  secret 
and  unbeknown  to  their  respective  mass- 
peoples,  and  for  motives  best  known  to  them- 
selves. 

One  would  not  venture  to  say  that  all  wars 
are  so  engineered,  for  there  certainly  are 
occasionally  wars  which  are  the  spontaneous 
expression  of  two  nations'  natural  hostility 
and  hatred ;  but  these  are  rare,  very  rare, 
and  the  war  in  which  we  are  concerned  at 
present  is  certainly  not  one  of  them.  Also 
one  would  not  venture  to  say  that  though 
in  the  present  affair  the  actuating  motives 
have  been  of  class  origin,  and  have  been 
worked  through  secret  channels,  the  motives 
so  put  in  action  have  all  been  base  and  mean. 
That  would  be  going  too  far.  Some  of  the 
motives  may  have  been  high-minded  and 
generous,  some  may  have  been  mean,  and 
others  may  have  been  mean  and  yet  uncon- 
sciously so.  But  certainly  when  one  looks 
at  the  conditions  of  public  and  political  life, 
and  the  arrangements  and  concatenations  by 
which  influence  there  is  exerted  and  secured, 
and  sees  (as  one  must)  the  pretty  bad  cor- 


THE   TREE   OF   LIFE  211 

ruption  which  pervades  the  various  parties 
in  all  the  modern  States— the  commercial 
briberies,  the  lies  of  the  Press,  the  poses  and 
prevarications  of  Diplomats  and  Ministers- 
one  cannot  but  realize  the  great  probability 
that  the  private  advantage  of  individuals  or 
classes  has  been  (in  the  present  case)  a 
prevailing  instigation.  The  fact  that  in 
Britain  two  influential  and  honourable 
Cabinet  Ministers  resigned  at  once  on  the 
declaration  of  war  (a  fact  upon  which  the 
Press  has  been  curiously  silent)  cannot  but 
"  give  one  to  think."  One  cannot  but  realize 
that  the  fighting  men  in  all  these  nations 
are  the  pawns  and  counters  of  a  game  which 
is  being  played  for  the  benefit— or  supposed 
benefit— of  certain  classes ;  that  public 
opinion  is  a  huge  millstream  which  has  to  be 
engineered  ;  that  the  Press  is  a  channel  for 
its  direction,  and  Money  the  secret  power 
which  commands  the  situation. 

The  fact  is  sad,  but  it  must  be  faced. 
And  the  facing  of  it  leads  inevitably  to  the 
question,  "  How,  then,  can  Healing  ever 
come?"  If  (it  will  be  said)  the  origin  of 
wars  is  in  the  diseased  condition  of  the 
nations,  what  prospect  is  there  of  their  ever 


212        THE   HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

ceasing?  And  one  sees  at  once  that  the 
prospect  is  not  immediate.  One  sees  at  once 
that  Peace  Societies  and  Nobel  Prizes  and 
'Hague  Tribunals  and  reforms  of  the  Diplo- 
matic Service  and  democratic  control  of 
Foreign  Secretaries  and  Quaker  and  Tol- 
stoyan  preachments— though  all  these  things 
may  be  good  in  their  way— will  never  bring 
us  swiftly  to  the  realization  of  peace.  The 
roots  of  the  Tree  of  Life  lie  deeper. 

Wie  have  seen  it  a  dozen  times  in  the  fore- 
going pages.  Only  when  the  nations  cease 
to  be  diseased  in  themselves  will  they  cease 
fighting  with  each  other.  And  the  disease  of 
the  modern  nations  is  the  disease  of  disunity 
—not,  as  I  have  already  said,  the  mere  exist- 
ence of  variety  of  occupation  and  habit,  for 
that  is  perfectly  natural  and  healthy,  but 
the  disease  by  which  one  class  preys  upon 
another  and  upon  the  nation— the  disease  of 
parasitism  and  selfish  domination.  The 
health  of  a  people  consists  in  that  people's 
real  unity,  the  organic  life  by  which  each 
section  contributes  freely  and  generously  to 
the  welfare  of  the  whole,  identifies  itself  with 
that  welfare,  and  holds  it  a  dishonour  to 
snatch  for  itself  the  life  which  should  belong 


THE   TREE   OF   LIFE  213 

to  all.  A  nation  which  realized  that  kind  of 
life  would  be  powerful  and  healthy  beyond 
words  ;  it  would  not  only  be  splendidly  glad 
and  prosperous  and  unassailable  in  itself,  but 
it  would  inevitably  infect  all  other  nations 
with  whom  it  had  dealings  with  the  same 
principle.  Having  the  Tree  of  Life  well 
rooted  within  its  own  garden,  its  leaves 
and  fruit  and  all  its  acts  and  expressions 
would  be  for  the  healing  of  the  peoples 
around.  But  a  nation  divided  against  itself 
by  parasitic  and  self-exalting  cliques  and 
sections  could  never  stand.  It  could  never 
be  healthy.  No  armaments  nor  ingenuity  of 
science  and  organization  could  save  it,  and 
even  though  the  form  of  its  institutions  were 
democratic,  if  the  reality  of  Democracy  were 
not  there,  its  peace  crusades  and  prizes  and 
sentimental  Conferences  and  Christianities 
would  be  of  little  avail. 

At  this  juncture,  then,  all  over  Europe, 
when  the  classes  are  failing  us  and  by  their 
underhand  machinations  continually  embroil- 
ing one  nation  with  another,  it  is  above  all 
necessary  that  the  mass-peoples  should  move 
and  insist  upon  the  representation  of  their 
great     unitary     and     communal     life     and 


214        THE    HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

interests.  It  is  high  time  that  they  should 
open  their  eyes  and  see  with  clear  vision 
what  is  going  on  over  their  heads,  and  more 
than  high  time  that  they  should  refuse  to 
take  part  in  the  Quarrels  of  those  who  (pro- 
fessionally) live  upon  their  labour.  It  is 
indeed  astonishing  that  the  awakening  has 
been  so  long  in  coming  ;  but  surely  it  can- 
not be  greatly  delayed  now.  Underneath 
all  the  ambitions  of  certain  individuals  and 
groups ;  underneath  all  the  greed  and 
chicanery  of  others  ;  underneath  the  wide- 
spread ignorance,  mother  of  prejudice,  which 
sunders  folk  of  different  race  or  colour- 
deep  down  the  human  heart  beats  practi- 
cally the  same  in  all  lands,  drawing  us  little 
mortals    together. 

Strangely  enough— and  yet  not  strangely 
—it  beats  strongest  and  clearest  often  in  the 
simplest,  the  least  sophisticated.  Those  who 
live  nearest  the  truth  of  their  own  hearts 
are  nearest  to  the  hearts  of  others.  Those 
who  have  known  the  realities  of  the  world, 
and  what  Life  is  close  to  the  earth— they 
are  the  same  in  all  lands— they  have  at  least 
the  key  to  the  understanding  of  each  other. 
The  old  needs  of  life,  its  destinies  and  fatali- 


THE   TREE   OF   LIFE  215 

ties,  its  sorrows  and  joys,  its  exaltations  and 
depressions— these  are  the  same  everywhere  ; 
and  to  the  manual  workers — the  peasant,  the 
labourer,  the  sailor,  the  mechanic — the  world- 
old  trades,  pursuits,  crafts,  and  callings  with 
which  they  are  so  familiar  supply  a  kind 
of  freemasonry  which  ensures  them  even 
among  strangers  a  kindly  welcome  and  an 
easy  admittance.  If  you  want  to  travel  in 
foreign  lands,  you  will  find  that  to  be  skilled 
in  one  or  two  manual  trades  is  better  than 
a  high  official  passport. 

Among  such  people  there  is  no  natural 
hatred  of  each  other.  Despite  all  the  foam 
and  fury  of  the  Press  over  the  present  war, 
I  doubt  whether  there  is  any  really  violent 
feeling  of  the  working  masses  on  either  side 
between  England  and  Germany.  There 
certainly  is  no  great  amount  in  England, 
either  among  the  countryfolk  or  the  town 
artisans  and  mechanics ;  and  if  there  be 
much  in  Germany  (which  is  quite  doubt- 
ful) it  is  fairly  obviously  due  to  the  animus 
which  has  been  aroused  and  the  virus  which 
has  been  propagated  by  political  and  social 
schemers . 

We    have    had    enough    of    Hatred    and 


2i6        THE   HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

Jealousy.  For  a  century  now  commercial 
rivalry  and  competition,  the  perfectionment 
of  the  engines  of  war,  and  the  science 
of  destruction  have  sufficiently  occupied  the 
nations— with  results  only  of  disaster  and 
distress  and  ruin  to  all  concerned.  To-day 
surely  another  epoch  opens  before  us— an 
epoch  of  intelligent  helpfulness  and  frater- 
nity, an  epoch  even  of  the  simplest  common 
sense.  We  have  rejoiced  to  tread  and 
trample  the  other  peoples  underfoot,  to 
malign  and  traduce  them,  to  single  out  and 
magnify  their  defects,  to  boast  ourselves  over 
them.  And  acting  thus  we  have  but  made 
the  more  enemies.  Now  surely  comes  an 
era  of  recognition  and  understanding,  and 
with  it  the  glad  assurance  that  we  have 
friends  in  all  the  ends  of  the  earth. 

We— and  I  speak  of  the  European  nations 
generally— have  talked  loudly  of  our  own 
glory  ;  but  have  we  welcomed  and  acclaimed 
the  glory  and  beauty  of  the  other  peoples 
and  races  around  us — among  whom  it  is  our 
privilege  to  dwell  ?  We  have  boasted  to  love 
each  our  own  country,  but  have  we  cared 
at  all  for  the  other  countries  too  ?  Verily 
I    suspect    that    it    is    because    we   have   not 


THE   TREE  OF   LIFE   .  217 

truly  loved  our  own  coimtries,  but  have 
betrayed  them  for  private  profit,  that  we 
have  thought  fit  to  hate  our  neighbours  and 
ill-use  them  for  our  profit  too. 

•What  a  wonderful  old  globe  this  is,  with 
its  jewelled  constellations  of  humanity  ! 
Alfred  Russel  Wallace,  in  his  Travels  on 
the  Amazon  (1853,  ch.  xvii),  says:  "  I  do 
not  remember  a  single  circumstance  in  my 
travels  so  striking  and  so  new,  or  that  so 
well  fulfilled  all  previous  expectation,  as  my 
first  view  of  the  real  uncivilized  inhabitants 
of  the  river  Uaupes.  ...  I  felt  that  I  was 
as  much  in  the  midst  of  something  new  and 
startling,  as  if  I  had  been  instantaneously 
transported  to  a  distant  and  unknown 
coumry."  He  then  speaks  of  the  "  quiet, 
good-natured,  inoffensive  "  character  of  these 
copper-coloured  natives,  and  of  their  quick- 
ness of  hand  and  skill,  and  continues : 
"  Their  figures  are  generally  superb ;  and 
I  have  never  felt  so  much  pleasure  in  gazing 
at  the  finest  statue  as  at  these  living  illus- 
trations of  the  beauty  of  the  human  form." 
Elsewhere  he  says  i  :  "  Their  whole  aspect 
'  My  Life,  vol  ii,  p.  288. 


2i8        THE    HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

and  manner  were  different  [from  the  semi- 
civilized  Indians]  ;  they  walked  with  the  free 
step  of  the  independent  forest-dweller  .  .  . 
original  and  self-sustaining  as  the  wild 
animals  of  the  forest  .  ,  .  living  their  own 
lives  in  their  own  way,  as  they  had  done  for 
countless  generations  before  America  was 
discovered.  The  true  denizen  of  the 
Amazonian  forests,  like  the  forest  itself, 
is  unique  and  not  to  be  forgotten." 

Not  long  ago  I  was  talking  to  a  shrewd, 
vigorous  old  English  lady  who  had  spent 
some  forty  years  of  her  life  among  the  Kafirs 
in  South  Africa  and  knew  them  intimately. 
She  said  (not  knowing  anything  about  my 
feelings)  :  "  Ah  !  you  British  think  a  great 
deal  about  yourselves.  You  think  you  are 
the  finest  race  on  earth  ;  but  I  tell  you  the 
Kafirs  are  finer.  They  are  splendid. 
Whether  for  their  physical  attributes,  or 
their  mental,  or  for  their  qualities  of  soul, 
I  sometimes  think  they  are  the  finest  people 
in  the  world."  Whether  the  old  lady  was 
right  (and  one  has  heard  others  say  much 
the  same),  or  whether  she  was  carried  away 
by  her  enthusiasm,  the  fact  remains  that  here 
is  a  people  capable  of  exciting  such  enthu- 


THE   TREE   OF   LIFE  219 

siasm,  and  certainly  capable  of  exciting 
much  admiration  among  all  who  know  them 
well. 

Read  the  accounts  of  the  Polynesian 
peoples  at  an  early  period— before  commerce 
and  the  missionaries  had  come  among  them 
—as  given  in  the  pages  of  Captain  Cook, 
of  Herman  Melville,  or  even  as  adumbrated 
in  their  past  life  in  the  writings  of  R.  L. 
Stevenson— what  a  picture  of  health  and 
gaiety  and  beauty  !  Surely  never  was  there 
a  more  charming  and  happy  folk — even  if 
long-pig  did  occasionally  in  their  feasts  alter- 
nate with  wild-pig. 

And  yet  how  strange  that  the  white  man, 
with  all  his  science  and  all  his  so-called 
Christianity,  has  only  come  among  these  three 
peoples  mentioned  (and  how  many  more?) 
to  destroy  and  defile  them— to  flog  the  mild 
and  innocent  native  of  the  Amazons  to  death 
for  greed  of  his  rubber  ;  to  rob  the  Kafir 
of  his  free  wild  lands  and  blast  his  life 
with  drink  and  slavery  in  the  diamond 
mines ;  to  degrade  and  exterminate  the 
Pacific  islanders  with  all  the  vices  and 
diseases  of  "  civilization  "  ! 

Think  of  the  Chinese— that  extraordinary 


220        THE   HEALING  OF  NATIONS 

people  coming  down  from  the  remotest  ages 
of  history,  with  their  habits  and  institutions 
apparently  but  little  changed — so  kindly,  so 
"  all  there,"  so  bent  on  making  the  best  of 
this  world.  "  At  the  first  sight  of  these 
ugly,  cheery,  vigorous  people  I  loved  them. 
Their  gaiety,  as  of  children,  their  friendli- 
ness, their  profound  humanity,  struck  me 
from  the  first  and  remained  with  me  to  the 
last."  I  And  the  verdict  of  all  who  know 
the  people  well— in  the  interior  of  the  coun- 
try of  course— is  the  same.  Think  of  the 
Japanese  with  their  slight  and  simple,  but 
exceedingly  artistic  and  exceedingly  heroic 
type  of  civilization. 

Or,  again,  of  the  East  Indian  peoples,  so 
unfitted  as  a  rule  for  making  the  best  of 
this  world,  so  passive,  dreamy,  subtle,  un- 
practical, and  yet  with  their  marvellous 
spiritual  gift,  their  intuition  (also  since  the 
dawn  of  history)  and  conviction  of  another 
plane  of  being  than  that  in  which  we  mostly 
move,  and  their  occasional  power  of  dis- 
tinctly sensing  that  plane  and  acting  on  its 

'  G.  Lowes  Dickinson,  Cdvilizations  of  India,  China, 
and  Japan,  p.  43.  See  also  Eugene  Simon,  La  Citi 
Chinoise,  passim. 


THE   TREE   OF   LIFE  221 

indications.  Think  of  their  ancient  religious 
philosophy— their  doctrine  of  world-unity— 
absolutely  foundational  and  inexpugnable, 
the  corner-stone  of  all  metaphysics,  science, 
and  politics,  and  of  the  latest  most  modern 
democracy  ;  and  still  realized  and  believed 
in  in  India  as  nowhere  else  in  the  world. 

Think  of  the  gentle  Buddhistic  Burmese, 
the  active,  social  Malays,  the  hard- 
featured,  hard-lived  Thibetans  and  Mon- 
golians. Think  of  the  Arabian  and  Moorish 
and  Berber  races,  who,  once  the  masters 
of  the  science  and  comforts  of  civilization, 
of  their  own  accord  (but  in  accordance  also 
with  their  religion)  abandoned  the  worship 
of  all  these  idols  and  returned  to  the  Biblical 
simplicity  of  four  thousand  years  ago — having 
realized  that  they  already  possessed  some- 
thing better,  namely,  the  glory  of  the  sky 
and  the  earth,  the  sun  and  the  desert  sands, 
and  the  freedom  of  love  and  adventure. 
How  strange,  and  yet  how  natural,  that 
sundered  only  by  a  narrow  strip  of  sea  they 
even  now  should  look  back  upon  all  the 
laborious,  feverish,  and  overcrowded  wealth 
of  Europe  and  seeing  the  cost  thereof  should 
feel  for  it  only  contempt  !     For  that,  indeed. 


222        THE   HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

is  actually  for  the  most  part  the  case — though 
not  of  course  without  exceptions  among 
certain  sections  of  the  population. 

Or  again,  the  millions  and  millions  of 
Great  and  Little  Russian  peasants.  Big- 
framed,  big-hearted,  patient,  friendly,  with 
a  great  natural  gift  for  association  and  co- 
operation, peacefully  minded  and  profoundly 
religious  ;  yet  superstitious,  and  capable  of 
rising  at  any  moment  en  masse  to  the  call 
of  a  great  crusade  or  "  holy  war  "  ;  it  might 
seem  that  they  hold  all  Western  Europe  in 
the  hollow  of  their  hands.  Indeed  they 
constitute  not  only  a  hope  and  promise  of 
deliverance  to  our  modern  world,  but  also  a 
considerable  danger.  All  depends  on  how 
we  dispose  ourselves  towards  them.  Should 
the  nations  of  Western  Europe  rouse  their 
hatred  by  chicanery  and  mean  treatment  the 
result  might  be  fatal.  If  their  flood  once 
began  to  move,  no  battle  array  of  armaments 
would  be  of  any  use— any  more  than  a 
revolver  against  a  rising  tide — the  flood 
would  flow  round  and  over  us.  But  if  on 
the  other  hand  we  could  really  reach  the 
heart  of  this  great  people,  if  we  could  treat 
them  really  generously  and  with  understand- 


THE   TREE   OF   LIFE  223 

ing,  we  should  create  a  response  there,  and 
a  recognition,  which  would  remove  all  risk 
to  ourselves,  and  possibly  help  to  free  Russia 
from  the  great  burden  of  political  servitude 
and  ignorance  which  has  so  long  oppressed 
her  peasantry. 

Or  think  of  the  Servians — that  hospitable 
people,  good  lovers  and  good  haters,  with 
their  ancient,  almost  prehistoric,  system  of 
family  communities  surviving  down  to 
modern  days,  and  blossoming  out  in  a  perfect 
genius  for  co-operative  agriculture  and 
Raffeisen  banks  ! 

Or  the  Finns,  the  Swedes,  the  Nor- 
wegians, and  the  Danes  (if  I  may  class 
these  together)  ;  what  a  clear,  clean-minded, 
healthy  people  are  these,  so  direct  in  their 
touch  on  Nature  and  the  human  instincts,  so 
democratic,  bold,  and  progressive  in  their 
social  organizations— what  a  privilege  to  have 
them  as  our  near  neighbours  and  relatives  ! 
Or  the  Germans,  in  many  ways  resembling 
the  last  mentioned  group,  only  richer  and 
more  varied  in  their  culture  and  racial 
characteristics  !  Or  the  Dutch,  so  well-based 
and  broad-seated  both  in  body  and  mind, 
with  their  ample  bowels  of  compassion  and  ^ 


224        THE    HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

their  well-equipped  brains,  so  full  of  tender- 
ness and  of  sturdy  commonsense,  what  a  gift 
has  been  theirs  to  Europe,  what  a  legacy  of 
artistic  treasure  and  of  heroic  record  1  Or 
the  Spanish  with  their  beautiful  and  dignified 
women,  or  the  French  with  their  fine  logical 
and  artistic  sense,  or  the  Hungarians, 
Greeks,   and    Italians  ! 

'Have  we  nothing  to  do  but  to  prepare 
engines  of  death  and  of  slaughter  against  all 
these  peoples?  Is  our  main  idea  of  relation 
to  them  one  of  domination  and  profit  ?  Have 
we  no  use  for  them  but  to  gain  their  riches, 
and  in  exchange  to  lose  our  own  souls  ?  Or 
shall  we,  like  the  Prussians,  seek  to 
"  impose  "  our  own  standards  of  so-called 
culture  on  them,  and  trim  their  infinite 
variety  and  grace  to  one  sorry  pattern? 
These  are  all  in  their  diverse  glory  and 
beauty  as  leaves  of  the  one  great  Tree  whose 
branches  spread  over  the  earth.  Whoever 
understands  this,  and  penetrating  to  the  great 
heart  beneath,  recognizes  the  same  original 
life  in  them  all,  will  possess  the  secret  of 
salvation  ;  whatever  nation  first  casts  aside 
the  filthy  rags  of  its  own  self -righteousness 
and  the  defiling  and  sordid  garment  of  mer- 


THE   TREE   OF   LIFE  225 

cenary  gain,  and  accepts  the  others  frankly 
as  its  brother  and  sister  nations,  all  of  one 
family— that  nation  will  become  the  Healer 
and  Redeemer  of  the  World. 

It  is  interesting  to  find  that,  according  to 
the  Book  of  Revelation,  the  tree  of  which 
we  have  been  speaking  grows  with  its  roots 
"  in  the  pure  river  of  the  water  of  Life, 
which  proceeds  from  the  throne  of  God  and 
the  Lamb."  What  exactly  the  author  of  the 
book  meant  by  this  passage  has  been  much 
debated.  It  is  clear  that  there  is  here  a 
veiled  allusion  to  the  Zodiac— that  mysterious 
belt  of  constellations  which  runs  like  a  river 
round  the  whole  starry  heavens,  and  rises  in 
the  constellation  of  the  Ram  or  He-lamb— 
but  to  debate  that  question  now  would  be 
unprofitable,  even  were  one  fully  competent 
to  do  so.  More  to  the  point  is  it  to  see  that 
this  remarkable  simile  has  an  inner  sense 
applicable  to  mankind,  and  so  far  inde- 
pendent of  any  allusion  to  the  Zodiac.  This 
Tree  that  is  for  the  healing  of  the  nations  has 
its  roots  in  the  pure  water  of  Life  which 
flows  from  the  great  Throne.  We  have  seen 
in  an  early  chapter  where  the  roots  of  Strife 

15 


226        THE   HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

between  the  nations  are  to  be  sought  for, 
and  whence  they  draw  their  nourishment. 
They  are  to  be  found  in  the  very  muddy 
waters  of  domination  and  selfishness  and 
greed.  But  the  roots  of  the  Tree  of  Healing 
are  in  the  pure  waters  of  Life.  Right  down 
f  below  all  the  folly  and  meanness  which 
clouds  men's  souls  flows  the  universal  Life 
pure  from  its  original  source.  The  longer 
you  live,  the  more  clearly  and  certainly  you 
will  perceive  it.  In  the  eyes  of  the  men 
and  women  around  you  you  will  perceive  it, 
and  in  the  eyes  of  the  children— aye,  and 
even  of  the  animals.  Unclean,  no  doubt, 
will  the  surface  be— muddied  with  mean- 
nesses and  self -motives  ;  and  among  those 
classes  and  currents  of  people  who  chiefly 
delight  to  dwell  in  the  midst  of  such  things 
(who  dwell  in  the  floating  mire  of  malice 
and  envy  and  self-assertion  and  avarice  and 
conceit  and  deceit  and  domination  and  other 
such  refuse),  the  waters  will  be  foul  indeed  ; 
but  below  these  classes,  among  the  simple, 
comparatively  unselfconscious  types  of 
humanity  who  everywhere  represent  the  uni- 
versal life  (without,  in  a  sense,  being  aware 
of  it),  and  again,  above  them,  among  those 


THE   TREE   OF    LIFE  227 

whose  spirits  have  passed  "  in  compassion 
and  determination  around  the  whole  earth 
and  found  only  equals  and  lovers,"  the  water 
flows  pure  and  free.  These  two  groups— 
between  them  forming  far  the  largest  and 
most  important  mass  of  human  kind— are 
those  whose  influence  and  tendency  is  toward 
peace  and  amity.  It  is  only  the  scurrying, 
avaricious,  fever-stricken,  and,  for  all  their 
wealth,  poverty-stricken  classes  and  cliques 
of  the  civilization-period  who  are  the  sources 
of  discord  and  strife— and  they  only  for  a 
time.  In  the  end  it  will  be  found  that  by 
every  river  and  stream  and  tiny  brook  over 
the  whole  earth  grows  the  invincible  Tree 
of  Life,  whose  roots  are  deep  in  the  human 
heart,  and  whose  leaves  are  for  the  healing 
of  the  Nations. 


APPENDIX 

[The  following  extracts,  mostly  from  contem- 
poraneous sources,  are  gathered  together  in  an 
Appendix  with  the  object  of  throwing  side-lights, 
often  from  opposing  points  oj  view,  on  the  ques- 
tions raised  in  the  text.] 


APPENDIX 

A  New  and  Better  Peace. 

"  If  we  now  destroy  the  German  national  idol, 
it  must  not  be  to  set  up  an  idol  of  our  own  in  its 
place.  There  will  be  ruin  enough  after  the  war  to 
repair,  and  a  heavy  task  for  all  the  nations  in 
repairing  it ;  but  if  they  have  learned  then  that 
peace  is  not  a  disguised  war  but  a  state  of  being  in 
which  men  and  nations  alike  pursue  their  own  ideas 
of  excellence  without  rivalry,  then  we  shall  know 
that  the  irrevocable  dead  have  not  died  in  vain. — 
"Times"  Literary  Supplement,  September  17,  1914. 


The  Change  from  the  Germany  of  Kant  and 
Goethe  and  Schubert  to  the  Germany 

OF      TO-DAY — and      THE      DELUSION       OF      IM- 
PERIALISM. 

"What,  then,  has  wrought  this  wonderful  change 

in   a  people  so  closely  allied  to  ourselves,  whose 

race  is  so  similar  that  their  children  in  the  hotels 

of    France    and    Italy    are    mistaken    for    British 

children  ?     The  human  raw  material  is  the  same, 

231 


232        THE   HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

and  until  half  a  century  ago  gave  results  which 
won  our  respect  and  admiration.  What  is  this 
change  of  the  last  half-century  which  from  the 
same  material  gives  results  so  different  ?  There  can 
be  only  one  answer.  The  old  Germany  was  a 
Germany  of  small,  self-governing  States,  of  small 
political  power  ;  the  new  Germany  is  a  'great' 
Germany,  with  a  new  ideal  and  spirit  which  comes 
of  victory  and  military  and  political  power,  of  the 
reshaping  of  political  and  social  institutions  which 
the  retention  of  conquered  territory  demands,  its 
militarization,  regimentation,  centralization,  and  un- 
challenged authority  ;  the  cultivation  of  the  spirit 
of  domination,  the  desire  to  justify  and  to  frame  a 
philosophy  to  buttress  it.  Some  one  has  spoken  of 
the  war  which  made  '  Germany  great  and  Germans 
small.'  .  .  ." 

"...  So  in  our  day,  it  is  not  the  German  national 
faith,  the  Deuischtum,  the  belief  that  the  German 
national  ideal  is  best  for  the  German — it  is  not  that 
belief  that  is  a  danger  to  Europe.  It  is  a  belief  that 
that  German  national  ideal  is  the  best  for  all  other 
people,  and  that  the  Germans  have  a  right  to  impose 
it  by  the  force  of  their  armies.  It  is  that  belief 
alone  which  can  be  destroyed  by  armies.  We  must 
show  that  we  do  not  intend  to  be  brought  under 
German  rule,  or  have  German  ideals  imposed  upon 
us,  and  having  demonstrated  that,  the  Allies  must 
show  that  they  in  their  turn  have  no  intention  of 
imposing  their  ideals  or  their  rule  or  their  domin- 
ance upon  German  peoples.     The  Allies  must  show 


APPENDIX  233 

after  this  war  that  they  do  not  desire  to  be  the 
masters  of  the  German  peoples  or  States,  but  their 
partners  and  associates  in  a  Europe  which  none 
shall  dominate,  but  which  all  shall  share." — From 
"  Shall  this  Wat  End  German  Militarism  1 "  by 
Norman  Angell. 


German  Public  Opinion  in   19 13  with  Regard 
TO  THE  Impending  War. 

The  Report  on  this  subject  given  in  the  French 
Yellow  Book  (Section  5)  throws  much  light  on  the 
attitude  of  the  various  classes  in  Germany.  In 
favour  of  peace  (it  says)  are  "the  large  mass  of 
workmen,  artisans,  and  peasants,  who  are  peaceful 
by  instinct  "  ;  a  considerable  number  of  non-military 
nobility,  and  of  "  manufacturers,  merchants,  and 
financiers  of  minor  importance,  to  whom  even  a 
victorious  war  would  bring  bankruptcy "  ;  also  a 
vast  number  of  those  who  are  continually  in  a  state 
of  "  suppressed  revolt  against  Prussian  policy,"  like 
the  "  Government  and  ruling  classes  of  the  great 
southern  States,  Saxony,  Bavaria,  Wurtemburg,"  and 
so  forth. 

On  the  other  hand,  in  favour  of  war  are  the 
great,  mainly  Prussian,  war  party,  consisting  of  the 
military  aristocracy  and  nobility  "  who  see  with 
terror  the  democratization  of  Germany  and  the 
growing  force  of  the  Socialist  party"  ;  "others  who 
consider  war  as   necessary  for   economic   reasons 


234        THE   HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

found  in  over-population  and  over-production, 
the  need  of  markets  and  outlets  "  ;  the  great 
bourgeoisie,  "  which  also  has  its  reasons  of  a  social 
nature — the  upper  middle  class  being  no  less  affected 
than  the  nobility  by  the  democratization  of  Germany 
.  .  .  and,  finally,  the  gun  and  armour-plate  manu- 
facturers, the  great  merchants  who  clamour  for 
greater  markets,  and  the  bankers  who  speculate  on 
the  Golden  Age  and  the  indemnity  of  war.  These, 
too,  think  that  war  would  be  good  business." 

The   whole    paper    is    too    long    for    extensive 
citation  here,  but  is  well  worth  reading. 


Political  Ignorance  in  Germany. 

"On  Tuesday  last  at  the  Union  Society  Mr. 
Dudley  Ward,  late  Berlin  correspondent  of  the 
Daily  Chronicle  and  other  English  papers,  and 
Fellow  of  St.  John's  College,  dealt  with  'The  War 
from  the  German  Point  of  View.'  Mr.  Ward's 
profound  knowledge  of  Germany,  especially  since 
191 1,  and  his  obvious  attempt  to  review  recent 
events  with  impartiality,  was  a  revelation  to  Cam- 
bridge, and  a  very  large  audience  showed  its 
enthusiastic  appreciation  of  his  ability  and  his 
frankness. 

"  Mr.  Ward  emphasized  particularly  the  astonish- 
ing political  ignorance  of  the  German  people  as  a 
whole,  an  ignorance  quite  unintelligible  to  any 
one     unacquainted    with     their    Press    and    their 


APPENDIX  235 

political  institutions.  Public  opinion,  as  he  said, 
counts  for  little  in  Germany,  and  the  Government 
can  generally  guide  it  into  any  direction  it  may 
please,  and  this  fact  is  essential  to  the  under- 
standing of  the  events — diplomatic  events — which 
led  to  the  declaration  of  war." — From  the  "  Cam- 
bridge Magazine,"  December  5,   1914. 


"  One  of  the  political  phenomena  of  America  has 
always  been  the  indifference  of  the  German  to  active 
participation  in  politics.  Efforts  to  persuade  him 
to  organize  with  any  political  party  have  never 
succeeded  except  in  isolated  cases.  The  German- 
American  has  been  regarded  as  an  independent 
politically.  Until  Europe's  conflict  raised  concealed 
characteristics  to  the  surface  the  German-American's 
indifference  to  politics  had  not  been  looked  upon 
as  a  serious  matter." — From  article  by  Mt.  John 
Herbert  in  the  London  "  Daily  News,"  December, 
1914. 

Germany's  Purpose. 

According  to  Herr  Maximilien  Harden's  article 
in  "  Die  Zukunft,"  as  reproduced  in  the  "  New 
York  Times,"  December,  1914. 

"  Not  as  weak-willed  blunderers  have  we  under- 
taken the  fearful  risk  of  this  war.  We  wanted  it. 
Because  we  had  to  wish  it  and  could  wish  it.  May 
the  Teuton  devil  throttle  those  whiners  whose  pleas 


236        THE    HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

for  excuses  make  us  ludicrous  in  these  hours  of 
lofty  experience.  We  do  not  stand,  and  shall  not 
place  ourselves,  before  the  Court  of  Europe.  Our 
power  shall  create  new  law  in  Europe.  Ger- 
many strikes.  If  it  conquers  new  realms  for  its 
genius,  the  priesthood  of  all  the  gods  will  sing 
songs  of  praise  to  the  good  war. 

"  We  are  at  the  beginning  of  a  war  the  develop- 
ment and  duration  of  which  are  incalculable,  and 
in  which  up  to  date  no  foe  has  been  brought  to 
his  knees.  We  wage  the  war  in  order  to  free 
enslaved  peoples,  and  thereafter  to  comfort  our- 
selves with  the  unselfish  and  useless  consciousness 
of  our  own  righteousness.  We  wage  it  from  the 
lofty  point  of  view  and  with  the  conviction  that 
Germany,  as  a  result  of  her  achievements  and  in 
proportion  to  them,  is  justified  in  asking,  and 
must  obtain,  wider  room  on  earth  for  develop- 
ment and  for  working  out  the  possibilities  that 
are  in  her." 


England's  Perfidy. 

Froui  the  Manifesto  of  Professors  Haeckel  and  Eucken, 
September,  1914. 

"What  is  happening  to-day  surpasses  every 
instance  from  the  past;  this  last  example  will  be 
permanently  characterized  in  the  annals  of  the 
world  as  the  indelible  shame  of  England.  Great 
Britain  is  fighting  for  a  Slavic,  semi-Asiatic  Power 


APPENDIX  237 

against  Teiiionism ;  she  is  fighting,  not  only  in 
the  ranks  of  barbarism  but  also  on  the  side  of 
wrong  and  injustice,  for  let  it  not  be  forgotten 
that  Russia  began  the  war,  because  she  refused  to 
permit  adequate  expiation  for  a  miserable  assassina- 
tion ;  but  the  blame  for  extending  the  limits  of  the 
present  conflict  to  the  proportions  of  a  world- 
war,  through  which  the  sum  of  human  culture  is 
threatened,  rests  upon  England. 

"And  the  reason  for  all  this  ?  Because  England 
was  envious  of  Germany's  greatness,  because  she 
was  bound  to  hinder  further  expansion  of  the 
German  sphere  at  any  cost  !  There  cannot  be 
the  least  doubt  that  England  was  determined  from 
the  start  to  break  in  upon  Germany's  great  conflict 
for  national  existoice,  to  cast  as  many  stones  as 
possible  in  Germany's  path,  and  to  block  her  every 
effort  toward  adequate  expansion.  England  lay 
in  wait  until  the  favourable  opportunity  for 
inflicting  a  lasting  injury  upon  Germany  should 
come,  and  promptly  seized  upon  the  unavoidable 
German  invasion  of  Belgian  territory  as  a  pretext 
for  draping  her  own  brutal  national  egotism  in 
a  mantle  of  decency. 

"  Or  is  there  in  the  whole  world  a  person  so  simple 
as  to  believe  that  England  would  have  declared  war 
upon  France,  had  the  latter  Power  invaded  Belgium  f 
In  that  event,  England  would  have  shed  hypo- 
critical tears  over  the  necessary  violation  of  inter- 
national law,  while  concealing  a  laughing  face 
behind    the  mask.      The   most   repulsive   thing   in 


238        THE   HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

the  whole  business  is  this  hypocritical  Pharisaism ; 
it  merits  only  contempt. 

"  History  shows  that  such  sentiments  as  these, 
far  from  guiding  nations  upward,  lead  them  along 
the  downward  path.  But  we  of  this  present  time 
have  fixed  our  faith  firm  as  a  rock  upon  our 
righteous  cause,  and  upon  the  superior  power  and 
the  inflexible  will  for  victory  that  abide  in  the 
German  nation.  Nevertheless  the  deplorable  fact 
remains,  that  the  boundless  egotism  already  men- 
tioned has  for  that  span  of  the  future  discernible 
to  us  destroyed  the  collaboration  of  the  two  nations 
which  was  so  full  of  promise  for  the  intellectual 
uplift  of  humanity.  But  the  other  party  has  willed 
it  so.  Upon  England  alone  rests  the  monstrous 
guilt  and  the  responsibility  in  the  eye  of  world- 
history." 

"  Ernst  Haeckel. 
"  Rudolf  EuckExN." 


From  the  Manifesto  of  Professor  Eucken. 

"  Let  us  hope  that  our  German  weapons  will  show 
the  Englishmen  that  they  were  entirely  wrong  in 
their  reckoning  ;  but  first  let  us  point  out  the  wide 
discrepancy  between  their  motives  and  ours. 

"  With  them  it  is  self-seeking,  envy,  calculation  ; 
with  us  the  conviction  that  we  are  fighting  for 
the  holiest  possessions  of  our  people,  for  right 
and  justice." 


APPENDIX  239 

Nietzsche  on  Disarmament. 

The  following  extract  from  Nietzsche  may  be  worth 
quoting  as  presenting  one  aspect  of  his  many-sided 
thought  : — 

"  Perhaps  a  memorable  day  will  come  when  a 
nation  renowned  in  wars  and  victories,  dis- 
tinguished by  the  highest  development  of  military 
order  and  intelligence,  and  accustomed  to  make 
the  heaviest  sacrifices  for  these  objects,  will  volun- 
tarily exclaim,  '  We  will  break  our  swords,'  and 
will  destroy  its  whole  military  system,  lock,  stock, 
and  barrel.  To  make  ourselves  defenceless  (after 
having  been  most  strongly  defended),  from  loftiness 
of  sentiment,  is  the  means  towards  genuine  peace. 
.  .  .  The  so-called  armed  peace  that  prevails  at 
present  in  all  countries  is  a  sign  of  a  bellicose 
disposition,  that  trusts  neither  itself  nor  its  neigh- 
bour, and,  partly  from  hate  partly  from  fear,  refuses 
to  lay  down  its  weapons.  Better  to  perish  than 
to  hate  and  fear  ;  and  twice  better  to  perish  than 
to  make  oneself  hated  and  feared." — From  "  Human 
all  too  Human,"  vol.  ii.  (translated  by  P.  V.  Colm, 
1911). 


The  Effect  of  Disarmament. 

"Just  as  the  growth  of  armaments  increases  the 
common  danger,  so  a  policy  of  reduction  would 
have   the  opposite  effect,  and  were  one  European 


240        THE    HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

country  boldly  to  adopt  disarmament  it  would 
strengthen  incalculably  the  forces  making  for  peace 
in  all  countries.  The  armaments  of  European 
nations  are  interdependent,  and  were  such  a  policy 
pursued  by  one  nation  it  would  be  followed,  if 
not  by  immediate  disarmament  in  other  nations, 
at  any  rate,  by  very  considerable  reductions.  It 
is  very  easy  to  underrate  the  feeling  which  for  some 
time  past  has  been  growing  tliroughout  Europe 
against  the  colossal  waste  of  armaments.  Even  in 
Germany,  whose  geographical  position  from  a  mili- 
tary point  of  view  is  weak,  the  Socialist  vote,  which 
is  cast  strenuously  against  armaments,  has  grown  at 
each  election  until  it  now  represents  some  35  per 
cent,  of  the  total  electorate.  The  great  weapon 
with  which  reaction  has  attempted  to  combat 
Socialist  growth  has  been  an  appeal  against  the 
*  unpatriotic  '  opposition  to  armaments.  What  effect 
would  this  appeal  have  in  face  of  disarmament 
abroad  ?  The  Socialist  party,  with  its  anti-militarist 
programme,  would  sweep  Germany  and  compel 
the  Government  rapidly  to  follow  suit.  Sooner 
or  later  the  internal  pressure  of  public  opinion 
would  force  the  adoption  of  a  similar  policy 
upon  the  Government  of  every  civilized  country 
in  Europe." — From  "  Why  Britain  Should  Disarm," 
by  George  Benson  {National  Labour  Press,  id.). 


APPENDIX  241 

The  Principle  of  Nationality. 

"  Now  the  war  has  come,  and  when  it  is  over 
let  us  be  careful  not  to  make  the  same  mistake 
or  the  same  sort  of  mistake  as  Germany  made 
when  she  had  France  prostrate  at  her  feet  in 
1870.  (Cheers.)  Let  us,  whatever  we  do,  fight 
for  and  work  towards  great  and  sound  prin- 
ciples for  the  European  system.  And  the  first  of 
those  principles  which  we  should  keep  before  us  is 
the  principle  of  nationality — that  is  to  say,  not  the 
conquest  or  subjugation  of  any  great  community 
or  of  any  strong  race  of  men,  but  the  setting  free 
of  those  races  which  have  been  subjugated  and 
conquered ;  and  if  doubt  arises  about  disputed 
areas  of  country  we  should  try  to  settle  their 
ultimate  destination  in  the  reconstruction  of  Europe 
which  must  follow  from  this  war  with  a  fair  regard 
to  the  wishes  and  feelings  of  the  people  who 
live  in  them." — From  the  speech  of  Mr.  Churchill^ 
September  11,  1914,  at  the  London  Opera  House. 


Conscription. 

"  If  we,  in  a  moment  of  unthinking  panic,  adopt 
the  advice  of  our  militarists  and  develop  an  Army 
based  on  universal  service,  we  shall  prepare  for 
ourselves  the  very  situation  in  which  Germany  finds 
itself  at  this  moment.  However  much  we  may 
protest  that  our  aims  are  pacific,  and  that  our  Army 

16 


242        THE   HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

is  intended  only  for  defensive  purposes,  foreign 
nations  will  view  it  with  alarm,  and  will  reflect  that, 
by  the  help  of  our  Navy,  we  can  land  an  armed 
force  in  any  country  that  has  a  sea  coast.  We  shall 
thus  incur  the  risk  of  a  coalition  against  us.  It  is 
said  that  if  we  had  had  a  conscript  Army,  the 
present  war  would  not  have  taken  place.  But  it  is 
not  realized  that  a  different  and  far  more  dangerous 
war  would  have  been  probable,  a  war  in  which  we 
should  have  had  no  continental  Allies,  but  should 
have  been  resisted,  as  Germany  is  being  resisted,  in 
order  to  relieve  Europe  of  an  intolerable  terror.  .  .  . 
"  In  a  word,  of  all  the  measures  open  to  us  to 
adopt,  none  is  so  likely  to  bring  us  to  disaster  as 
universal  military  service." — By  Hon.  Bertrand 
Russell  {in  "  The  Labour  Leader,"  October  15,  1914). 


H.  G.  Wells  on  the  Regulation  of  Armaments 
AND  Neutralization  of  the  Sea. 

"  If  there  is  courage  and  honesty  enough  in  men, 
I  believe  it  will  be  possible  to  establish  a  world 
Council  for  the  regulation  of  armaments  as  the 
natural  outcome  of  this  war.  First,  the  trade  in 
armaments  must  be  absolutely  killed.  And  then 
^he  next  supremely  important  measure  to  secure 
the  peace  of  the  world  is  the  neutralization  of 
the  sea. 

"  It  will   lie   in   the  power  of   England,  France, 


APPENDIX  243 

Russia,  Italy,  Japan,  and  the  United  States,  if 
Germany  and  Austria  are  shattered  in  this  war,  to 
forbid  the  further  building  of  any  more  ships  of  war 
at  all." — From  the  "Daily  Chronicle,"  August  21,  1914. 


The  War  and  Democracy. 

"  It  will  be  necessary  soon  to  consider  the  rela- 
tions of  democracy  to  the  war.  The  war  is  a  war 
of  nationalities,  but  it  was  not  made  by  peoples. 
Its  begetter  was  a  comparatively  small  band  of 
unscrupulous,  blind,  and  conceited  persons,  who 
were  clever  and  persistent  enough  to  demoralize 
a  whole  people.  In  so  far  as  they  permitted  them- 
selves to  be  demoralized  the  people  were  to  blame, 
but  the  chief  blame  lies  on  the  small  band.  Europe 
is  laid  waste,  hundreds  of  thousands  of  men 
murdered,  and  practically  every  human  being  in 
the  occidental  hemisphere  made  to  suffer,  not  for 
the  amelioration  of  a  race,  but  in  order  to  satisfy 
the  idiotic  ambitions  of  a  handful.  Let  not  this 
fact  be  forgotten.  Democracy  will  not  forget  it. 
And  foreign  policy  in  the  future  will  not  be  left  in 
the  hands  of  any  autocracy,  by  whatever  specious 
name  the  autocracy  may  call  itself.  Ruling  classes 
have  always  said  that  masses  were  incapable  of 
understanding  foreign  policy.  The  masses  under- 
stand it  now.  They  understand  that  in  spite  of 
very  earnest  efforts  in  various  Cabinets,  the  ruling 
classes  have  failed  to  avert  the  most  terrible  disaster 


244        THE    HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

in  history.  The  masses  will  say  to  themselves,  *  At 
any  rate  we  couldn't  have  done  worse  than  that.' 
The  masses  know  that  if  the  war  decision  had 
been  openly  submitted  to  a  representative  German 
chamber,  instead  of  being  taken  in  concealment 
and  amid  disgusting  chicane,  no  war  would  have 
occurred.  It  is  absolutely  certain  that  the  triumph 
of  democracy,  and  nothing  else,  will  end  war  as  an 
institution.  War  will  be  ended  when  the  Foreign 
Offices  are  subjected  to  popular  control.  That 
popular  control  is  coming." — Arnold  Bennett  in  the 
"Daily  News,"  October  15,  1914. 


The  Future  Settlement. 

Let  us  turn,  then,  from  the  past  to  the  future  and 
ask,  first,  what  the  governmental  mind,  left  to  itself, 
is  likely  to  make  of  Europe  when  the  war  is 
finished ;  secondly,  what  we,  on  our  part,  want  and 
mean  to  make  of  it.  What  the  diplomatists  will 
make  of  it  is  written  large  on  every  page  of  history. 
Again  and  again  they  have  "  settled  "  Europe,  and 
always  in  such  a  way  as  to  leave  roots  for  the 
growth  of  new  wars.  For  always  they  have  settled 
it  from  the  point  of  view  of  States,  instead  of  from 
the  point  of  view  of  human  life.  How  one  "  Power" 
may  be  aggrandized  and  another  curtailed,  how  the 
spoils  may  be  divided  among  the  victors,  how  the 
"  balance  "  may  be  arranged — these  kinds  of  con- 
siderations and  these  alone  have  influenced  their 


APPENDIX  245 

minds.  The  desires  of  peoples,  the  interests  of 
peoples,  that  sense  of  nationality  which  is  as  real 
a  thing  as  the  State  is  fictitious — to  all  that  they 
have  been  indifferent.  .  .  . 

What  can  be  foreseen  with  certainty  is,  that  if  the 
peace  is  to  be  made  by  the  same  men  who  made 
the  war  it  will  be  so  made  that  in  another  quarter 
of  a  century  there  will  be  another  war  on  as  gigantic 

When  this  war  is  over  Europe  might  be  settled, 
then  and  there,  if  the  peoples  so  willed  it  and  made 
their  will  effective,  in  such  a  way  that  there  would 
never  again  be  a  European  War.  .  .  . 

First,  the  whole  idea  of  aggrandizing  one  nation 
and  humiliating  another  must  be  set  aside.  .  .  . 
Secondly,  in  rearranging  the  boundaries  of  States, 
one  point,  and  one  only,  must  be  kept  in  mind  :  to 
give  to  all  peoples  suffering  and  protesting  under 
alien  rule  the  right  to  decide  whether  they  will 
become  an  autonomous  unit,  or  will  join  the 
political  system  of  some  other  nation.  .  .  .  Let  no 
community  be  coerced  under  British  rule  that 
wants  to  be  self-governing.  We  have  had  the 
courage,  though  late,  to  apply  this  principle  to 
South  Africa  and  Ireland.  There  remains  our 
greatest  act  of  courage  and  wisdom — to  apply  it  to 
India. — G.  Lowes  Dickinsofi,  "  The  War  and  the  Way 
Out,"  pp.  34  et  scq. 


246        THE  HEALING   OF   NATIONS 


A  War  Note  for  Democrats. 

"  The  truth  about  the  present  fighting — well,  it 
cannot  be  rendered  in  words  significant  enough  to 
shock  into  understanding  the  people  who  are  look- 
ing in  the  newspapers  now  for  stories  of  heroism, 
'  brilliant  bayonet  charges,'  and  the  rest  of  the 
inducements  which  sell  stories  of  warfare,  but  tell 
us  nothing  about  it.  Perhaps,  indeed,  there  are 
no  words  for  it.  I  doubt  whether  the  sincerest 
artist,  finely  sensitive,  and  with  the  choicest  army 
of  words  at  his  ready  and  accurate  command,  could 
assemble  the  case.  The  mind  of  a  witness  in 
France  is  not  stirred ;  it  is  stunned.  One  is 
speechless  before  the  spectacle  of  men,  not  fighting 
in  the  way  two  angry  men  would  fight,  but  coolly 
blasting  great  masses  of  their  opponents  to  pieces 
at  long  range,  and  out  of  sight  of  each  other,  till 
a  region  with  its  wrecked  towns  and  homesteads 
is  littered  with  human  bowels  and  fragments.  It  is 
possible  to  value  human  life  too  highly,  maybe. 
But  what  profit,  physical,  moral,  or  economic,  can 
be  got  from  draining  several  nations'  best  male 
generative  force  into  the  clay,  1  leave  it  to 
worshippers  of  tribal  war-gods  of  whatever  church, 
and  to  the  military  minds,  to  explain.  But  unless 
the  democracies  of  Europe,  after  settling  this  busi- 
ness, see  to  securing  such  a  settlement — whatever 
the  governing  classes  desire — that  this  Continental 
waste  can  never  occur  again,  then  one  would  have 


APPENDIX  247 

to  admit  human  nature  is  too  stupid  and  base  to 
be  troubled  over  any  longer." — H.  M.  Tonilinson, 
"  English  Review,"  December,  1914,  p.  75. 


Patriotism  ! 

"  It  would  seem,  then,  that  love  of  our  country 
can  flourish  only  through  the  hatred  of  other 
countries,  and  the  massacre  of  those  who  sacrifice 
themselves  in  defence  of  them.  There  is  in  this 
theory  a  ferocious  absurdity,  a  Neronian  dilettantism 
which  repels  me  in  the  very  depths  of  my  being. 
No  !  Love  of  my  country  does  not  demand  that  I 
shall  hate  and  slay  those  noble  and  faithful  souls 
who  also  love  their  country,  but  rather  that  I  should 
honour  them,  and  seek  to  unite  myself  with  them 
for  our  common  good.  .  .  . 

"  You  Socialists  on  both  sides  claim  to  be  defend- 
ing liberty  against  tyranny— French  liberty  against 
the  Kaiser,  Germany  liberty  against  the  Tsar. 
Would  you  defend  one  despotism  against  another  ? 
Unite  and  make  war  on  both.  There  was  no  reason 
for  war  between  the  Western  nations ;  French, 
English,  and  German,  we  are  all  brothers,  and  do 
not  hate  one  another.  The  war-preaching  Press 
is  envenomed  by  a  minority,  a  minority  vitally 
interested  in  maintaining  these  hatreds  ;  but  our 
peoples,  I  know,  ask  for  peace  and  liberty,  and  that 
alone."— Fra7»  Romain  Rolland's  pamphlet  "Above 
the  Battlefield,"  Cambridge,  1914. 


248        THE   HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

No  Patriotism  in  Business  ! 

The  following  leaderette  is  from  the  Glasgow 
Evening  Citizen  for  the  15th  of  January  : — 

"  In  business  patriotism  does  not  enter.  Insist- 
ently the  pocket  comes  first.  And  if  the  British 
consumer  of  aniline  dyes  can  obtain  his  raw 
material  more  advantageously  from  the  German 
than  from  the  British  producer,  he  will  probably 
be  ready  to  do  so  for  the  greater  gain  of  more 
economic  production  in  his  own  business." 


Manifesto  of  the  Independent  Labour 

Party. 

"We  desire  neither  the  aggrandizement  of  Ger- 
man militarism  nor  Russian  militarism,  but  the 
danger  is  that  this  war  will  promote  one  or  the 
other.  Britain  has  placed  herself  behind  Russia, 
the  most  reactionary,  corrupt,  and  oppressive 
Power  in  Europe.  If  Russia  is  permitted  to 
gratify  her  territorial  ambitions  and  extend  her 
Cossack  rule,  civilization  and  democracy  will  be 
gravely  imperilled.  Is  it  for  this  that  Britain 
has  drawn  the  sword  ? 

"  To  us  who  are  Socialists  the  workers  of  Ger- 
many and  Austria,  no  less  than  the  workers  of 
France  and  Russia,  are  comrades  and  brothers; 
in  this  hour  of  carnage  and  eclipse  we  have  friend- 


APPENDIX  249 

ship  and  compassion  to  all  victims  of  militarism. 
Our  nationality  and  independence,  which  are  dear 
to  us,  we  are  ready  to  defend,  but  we  cannot 
rejoice  in  the  organized  murder  of  tens  of  thou- 
sands of  workers  of  other  lands  who  go  to  kill 
and  be  killed  at  the  command  of  rulers  to  whom 
the  people  are  as  pawns. 

"The  People  must  everywhere  resist  such  terri- 
torial aggression  and  national  abasement  as  will 
pave  the  way  for  fresh  wars  ;  and,  throughout 
Europe,  the  workers  must  press  for  frank  and 
honest  diplomatic  policies,  controlled  by  them- 
selves, for  the  suppression  of  militarism  and  the 
establishment  of  the  United  States  of  Europe, 
thereby  advancing  towards  the  world's  peace. 
Unless  these  steps  are  taken  Europe,  after  the 
present  calamity,  will  be  still  more  subject  to 
the  increasing  domination  of  militarism,  and  liable 
to  be  drenched  with  blood." 


Responsibility  rests  on  the  whole  Capitalist 

Class. 

"  Prussian  militarism,  as  we  have  shown  in 
previous  issues,  exists,  as  all  militarism  does,  to 
further  and  protect  trade.  The  furtherance  of 
that  trade  meant  territorial  expansion,  which  in 
its  turn  was  a  menace  to  Britain  and  her  allies. 
Thus  it  is  that  this  war,  carefully  manoeuvred  by 
the  diplomats,  is  being  fought  to  conserve  to  one 


250        THE   HEALING  OF   NATIONS 

set  of  capitalists  their  right  to  exploit  the  peoples, 
and  to  check  another  set  from  encroaching  upon 
that  right. 

"  Germany — or  rather,  the  capitalists  of  Germany, 
for  whom  the  Kaiser  has  always  been  the  "  Publicity 
Agent" — has  consistently  worked  toward  the  objec- 
tive of  challenging  the  right  of  Britain  to  a  world- 
wide Empire.  To  the  German  capitalists  this  war 
is  but  the  realization  of  their  philosophy,  "  Might 
is  Right,"  and,  reckless  of  human  life  and  suffering, 
a  European  war  is  to  them  the  way  to  vaster  fields 
of  exploitation  and  greater  wealth.  Their  militarism 
was  the  machine,  and  the  workers  the  cogs  of  the 
wheels,  British  capitalists,  on  the  other  hand, 
determined  to  maintain  what  they  hold,  forgetful 
of  how  it  had  been  obtained,  were  thus  compelled 
to  take  up  the  cudgels  for  their  own  sakes  ;  and 
here,  as  in  Germany,  the  workers  are  the  tools 
used  to  save  their  fortunes  and  conserve  their 
rights." — "  The  Voice  of  Labour,"  October,  1914. 

"  And  it  is  not  unlikely  that  the  present  bloody 
catastrophe  will  at  last  awaken  the  people  from  their 
indifference.  The  bitter  pain  and  fearful  suffering 
will  perhaps  make  a  deeper  impression  than  the 
words  of  the  revolutionaries.  It  is  possible  that 
the  Social  Revolution  will  be  the  last  act  in  the 
present  tragedy  ;  possible  that  murderous  militarism 
will  be  drowned  in  the  blood  of  its  numberless 
victims  ;  that  the  people  of  the  different  countries 
will  unite  against  the  bloody  regime  of  modern 
Capitalism  and  its  institutions,  and  finally  produce 


APPENDIX  251 

a    new    social    culture     upon     the    basis    of    free 
Socialism." — "  Freedom,"  September  14. 

In  an  American  contemporary  a  quotation  is 
given  from  an  issue  of  Vorwdris  which  was  sup- 
pressed by  the  German  Government.     It  reads  : — 

"  The  comrades  abroad  can  be  assured  that  the 
German  working  class  disapproves  to-day  of  every 
piratical  policy  of  State  just  as  it  has  always 
disapproved  and  that  it  is  determined  to  resist 
the  predatory  subjugation  of  foreign  peoples  as 
strongly  as  the  circumstances  permit.  The  com- 
rades in  foreign  lands  can  be  assured  that,  though 
the  German  workmen  are  also  protecting  their 
Fatherland,  they  will  nevertheless  not  forget  that 
their  interests  are  the  same  as  those  of  the  pro- 
letariat in  other  countries,  who,  like  themselves, 
have  been  compelled  to  go  to  war  against  their 
will,  indeed,  even  against  their  often  repeated  pro- 
nouncements in  favour  of  peace." 


Text  of  Liebknecht's  Protest. 

The  Berner  Tagwacht  publishes  the  full  text  of 
Karl  Liebknecht's  protest  against  the  vote  of 
credit  by  the  Reichstag  on  December  2nd.  The 
protest  was  not  read,  the  President  having 
vetoed  it  under  pretext  that  it  would  entail  a 
call  to  order.     The   protest  was  communicated  to 


252        THE   HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

the  German   Press.     Not  one   paper  published  it. 
It  runs : — 


"  This  war,  desired  by  none  of  the  peoples 
concerned,  has  not  broken  out  in  behalf  of  the 
welfare  of  the  German  people  or  any  other.  It 
is  an  Imperialist  war,  a  war  for  the  capitalist 
domination  of  the  world's  markets  and  for  the 
political  domination  of  important  regions  for  the 
placing  of  industrial  and  banking  capital.  From 
the  point  of  view  of  rivalry  in  armaments,  it  is 
a  preventive  war  provoked  by  the  German  and 
Austrian  war  parties  together  in  the  obscurity  of 
semi-absolutism  and  of  secret  diplomacy." 

After  declaring  that  this  is  not  a  defensive  war 
for  Germany,  the  protest  continues : — 

"  A  rapid  peace,  one  which  does  not  humiliate 
anybody,  a  peace  without  conquests,  this  is  what 
we  must  demand.  Every  effort  in  this  direction 
must  be  favourably  received.  The  continuous  and 
simultaneous  affirmation  of  this  desire,  in  all  the 
belligerent  countries,  can  alone  put  a  stop  to  the 
bloody  massacre  before  the  complete  exhaustion 
of  all  the  peoples  concerned.  A  peace  based 
upon  the  international  solidarity  of  the  working 
class  and  on  the  liberty  of  all  the  peoples  can  alone 
be  a  lasting  peace.  It  is  in  this  sense  that  the 
proletariats  of  all  countries  must  furnish,  even 
in  the  course  of  this  war,  a  Socialist  efifort  for  peace. 


APPENDIX  253 

"  But  my  protest  is  against  the  war,  against  those 
who  are  responsible  for  it,  against  those  who  direct 
it ;  it  is  against  the  capitalist  policy  which  gave 
it  birth  ;  it  is  directed  against  the  capitalist  objects 
pursued  by  it,  against  the  plans  of  annexation, 
against  the  violation  of  the  neutrality  of  Belgium 
and  Luxemburg,  against  military  dictatorship, 
against  the  total  oblivion  of  social  and  political 
duties  of  which  the  Government  and  ruling  classes 
are  still  to-day  guilty.  For  this  reason,  I  reject 
the  military  credits  asked  for." — From  the  "Daily 
News,"  December  14,  1914. 

"  Karl  Liebknecht. 
"  Berlin,  December  2." 


Danger  of  Russia. 

The  following  is  the  text  of  the  resolution  passed 
by  the  Central  Committee  of  the  Russian  Social 
Democratic  Party  in  reply  to  M.  Vandervelde's 
appeal  on  behalf  of  the  Allied   cause  : — 

"  We  recognize  the  anti-democratic  character  of 
the  Prussian  hegemony,  but  as  Russian  Social 
Democrats  we  cannot  forget  another  enemy  of  the 
workers,  and  no  less  dangerous — Russian  absolutism. 
In  home  affairs  this  enemy  remains  what  it  always 
has  been,  a  merciless  oppressor  and  an  unceasing 
exploiter.  Even  at  the  present  moment,  when  we 
should  have  thought  this  despotism  would  be  more 


254        THE   HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

cautious,  it  remains  the  same  and  continues  the 
political  persecution  of  the  democracy,  and  of  all 
subject  nationalities.  To-day  all  Socialist  journals 
are  stopped,  all  working  class  organizations  are 
disbanded,  many  hundreds  of  members  are  arrested, 
and  our  brave  comrades  are  sent  to  exile  just  as 
before.  Should  this  war  end  in  victory  for  our 
present  Government,  it  will  become  the  centre  and 
mainstay  of  international  reaction.  .  .  .  Our  imme- 
diate objective  should  be  the  convocation  of  a 
Constitutional  Assembly.  We  demand  this  in  the 
interests  of  the  same  European  democracy  on 
whose  behalf  you  appeal.  Our  party  is  a  very 
important  section  of  the  world's  democracies,  and 
by  fighting  for  our  interests  we  are  at  the  same 
time  fighting  for  the  interests  of  all  democracies, 
enlarging  and  strengthening  them.  We  hope  that 
our  interests  are  not  considered  as  opposed  to  those 
of  other  European  democracies  which  we  esteem 
as  highly  as  our  own.  We  are  persuaded  that 
Russian  absolutism  is  the  chief  support  of  reac- 
tionary militarism  in  Europe,  and  that  it  has  bred 
in  the  German  hegemony  the  dangerous  enmity 
towards  European  democracy." 


Letter  on  Russia  from  P.  Kropotkin. 

"  '  But   what  about  the  danger  of  Russia  ? '    my 
readers  will  probably  ask. 

"  To   this    question,   every    serious    person    will 


APPENDIX  255 

probably  answer,  that  when  you  are  menaced  by 
a  great,  very  great  danger,  the  first  thing  to  do  is  to 
combat  this  danger,  and  then  see  to  the  next. 
Belgium  and  a  good  deal  of  France  are  conquered 
by  Germany,  and  the  whole  civilization  of  Europe 
is  menaced  by  its  iron  fist.  Let  us  cope  first  with 
this  danger. 

"As  to  the  next,  Is  there  anybody  who  has  not 
thought  himself  that  the  present  war,  in  which  all 
parties  in  Russia  have  risen  unanimously  against 
the  common  enemy,  will  render  a  return  to  the 
autocracy  of  old  materially  impossible  ?  And  then, 
those  who  have  seriously  followed  the  revolutionary 
movement  of  Russia  in  1905  surely  know  what 
were  the  ideas  which  dominated  in  the  First  and 
Second,  approximately  freely  elected  Dumas.  They 
surely  know  that  complete  Home  Rule  for  all  the 
component  parts  of  the  Empire  was  a  fundamental 
point  of  all  the  Liberal  and  Radical  parties.  More 
than  that :  Finland  then  actually  accomplished  her 
revolution  in  the  form  of  a  democratic  autonomy, 
and  the  Duma  approved  it. 

"And  finally,  those  who  know  Russia  and  her 
last  movement  certainly  feel  that  autocracy  will 
never  more  be  re-established  in  the  forms  it  had  before 
1905,  and  that  a  Russian  Constitution  coiUd  never 
take  the  Imperialist  forms  and  spirit  which  Parlia- 
mentary fide  has  taken  in  Germany.  As  to  us,  who 
know  Russia  from  the  inside,  we  are  sure  that  the 
Russians  never  will  be  capable  of  becoming  the 
aggressive,  warlike  nation  Germany  is.     Not   only 


256        THE   HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

the  whole  history  of  the  Russians  shows  it,  but  with 
the  Federation  which  Russia  is  boitnd  to  become  in 
the  very  near  future,  such  a  warHke  spirit  would  be 
absolutely  incompatible." — Quoted  in  "  Freedom," 
also  in  the  *'  Manchester  Guardian,"  Octobet,  1914. 


The  Future  of  Europe. 

Portion  of  a  letter  written  by  P.  Kropotkin  to  Mr.  R.  J. 
Kelly,  K.C.,  of  Dublin,  December  15,  19 15. 

"  The  same  for  the  South  Slavs  and  for  all 
nationahties  oppressed  in  Europe.  When  the  last 
Balkan  War  had  shown  the  inner  power  of  the 
South  Slavs,  I  greeted  in  it  the  disintegration  of  the 
Turkish  Empire,  which  would  be  followed  by  the 
disintegration  of  the  three  other  Empires — Austria, 
Russia,  and  Germany — so  as  to  open  the  way  for 
two,  three,  or  more  federations.  A  South  Slavonic 
federation — the  Balkan  United  State  was  the  dream 
of  Bakunin — would  be  followed  by  a  free  Poland, 
free  Finland,  Free  Caucasia,  free  Siberia,  federated 
for  peace  purposes.  Yes,  dear  Mr.  Kelly,  you  are 
right,  we  are  on  the  eve  of  great  events  in  Europe. 
Warmest  wishes  that  this  should  become  a  reality, 
or  receive  a  sound  beginning  of  realization,  during 
the  coming  new  year,  and  my  very  best  wishes  to 
you  of  health  and  vigour. — Sincerely  yours, 

"  P.  Kropotkin." 


APPENDIX  257 

Servia. 

"  We  are  therefore  justified  in  declining  to  accept 
such  evidence.  We  are  witnessing  the  birththroes 
of  a  new  nation,  the  triumph  of  the  idea  of  national 
unity  among  the  disunited  Southern  Slavs,  and  it  is 
the  duty  of  Britain  and  France,  whose  Fleets  are  now 
operating  on  the  Adriatic,  to  insist  upon  a  just  and 
permanent  solution,  based  upon  the  principle  of 
nationality  and  the  wishes  of  the  Southern  Slav 
race.  Only  by  treating  the  problem  as  an  organic 
whole  and  avoiding  patchwork  we  can  hope  to 
remove  one  of  the  chief  danger  centres  in  Europe." 
— Lecture  at  Essex  Hall,  November  13,  1914,  by 
R.  IV.  Seton  Watson. 


The  Battlefield. 

"  Then  the  camps  of  the  wounded — O  heavens 
what  scene  is  this? — is  this  indeed  humanity — these 
butchers'  shambles  ?  There  are  several  of  them. 
There  they  lie,  in  the  largest,  in  an  open  space 
in  the  woods,  from  two  hundred  to  three  hundred 
poor  fellows — the  groans  and  screams — the  odour 
of  blood,  mixed  with  the  fresh  scent  of  the  night, 
the  grass,  the  trees — that  slaughter-house !  Oh, 
well  is  it  their  mothers,  their  sisters  cannot  see 
them — cannot  conceive  and  never  conceived  these 
things. 

One  man  is  shot  by  a  shell,  both  in  the  arm  and 
leg — both   are    amputated — there    lie    the  rejected 

17 


258        THE   HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

members.  Some  have  their  legs  blown  off — some 
bullets  through  the  breast — some  indescribably 
horrid  wounds  in  the  face  or  head,  all  mutilated, 
sickening,  torn,  gouged  out — some  in  the  abdomen 
— some  mere  boys — many  rebels,  badly  hurt — they 
take  their  regular  turns  with  the  rest,  just  the  same 
as  any — the  surgeons  use  them  just  the  same. 
Such  is  the  camp  of  the  wounded — such  a  frag- 
ment, a  reflection  afar  off  of  the  bloody  scene — 
while  all  over  the  clear,  large  moon  comes  out  at 
times  softly,  quietly  shining. 

Amid  the  woods,  the  scene  of  flitting  souls — 
amid  the  crack  and  crash  and  yelling  sounds — the 
impalpable  perfume  of  the  woods — and  yet  the 
pungent,  stifling  smoke — the  radiance  of  the  moon, 
looking  from  heaven  at  intervals  so  placid — the 
sky  so  heavenly — the  clear-obscure  up  there,  those 
buoyant  upper  oceans — a  few  large,  placid  stars 
beyond,  coming  silently  and  languidly  out,  and 
then  disappearing — the  melancholy,  draperied  night 
above,  around.  And  never  one  more  desperate 
in  any  age  or  land — both  parties  now  in  force — 
masses — no  fancy  battle,  no  semi-play,  but  fierce 
and  savage  demons  fighting  there — courage  and 
scorn  of  death  is  the  rule,  exceptions  almost 
none." — From  Walt  Whituian, 


APPENDIX  259 


Chinese  Christians  on  the  War. 

"  The  most  remarkable  attitude  yet  taken  in 
regard  to  the  war  by  any  body  of  people  in  the 
world  is  that  of  the  native  Christian  Churches  in 
China.  I  was  told  a  fortnight  ago  by  a  missionary 
just  returned  from  China  that  the  Chinese  Christians 
are  holding  daily  prayer  meetings  to  pray  for  peace. 
They  are  also  praying  earnestly  that  the  Christians 
in  Europe  may  be  forgiven  for  killing  each  other, 
and,  in  particular,  that  the  British  and  German 
churches  and  ministers  may  be  forgiven  for  the 
blasphemy  of  praying  to  the  Common  Father  for 
victory  over  one  another,  i.e.  for  Divine  assistance 
in  smashing  and  maiming  and  murdering  more 
of  their  fellow  Christians.  I  am  also  told  that  these 
Chinese  Christians  appreciate  perfectly  that  for 
the  most  part  the  people  to  be  killed  are  helpless, 
innocent  workmen,  who  have  had  nothing  to  do 
with  the  cause  of  all  the  trouble. 

"  That  action  of  the  Chinamen  is  of  the  essence 
of  real  Christianity.  It  is  the  real  spirit.  It  has 
been  expressed  in  Europe  only  by  the  Pope,  on 
the  one  hand,  and,  on  the  other,  by  the  Socialists 
of  the  neutral  countries  and  by  the  I.L.P.  in 
England.  It  is  the  echo  of  the  angel  song  of  the 
first  Christmas  two  thousand  years  ago.  It  is  the 
true  note,  the  eternal  note.  It  is  the  note  which 
will  bring  mankind  back  to  its  senses  when  the 
hideous  passions,  the  false  idealisms,  and  the  sordid 


26o        THE    HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

greeds  behind  this  world  tragedy  are  shown  up 
for  what  they  are." — By  Dr.  Alfred  Salter  in  "The 
Labour  Leader,"  December  31,  1914- 


Essential  Friendliness  of  Peoples. 

"  This  essential  friendliness,  not  between  nations, 
but  between  people  of  different  nations,  is  one  of 
the  biggest  facts  of  civilization.  And  yet  it  has 
counted  for  so  little  that  half  the  nations  in  Europe 
are  fighting  one  another.  Are  the  causes,  then, 
that  have  set  us  fighting  stronger  still  ?  Yes,  when 
it  is  a  question  of  national  conscience.  And  one 
must  regretfully  say  yes,  as  long  as  it  is  possible 
for  those  who  rule  nations  and  desire  war  to  carry 
out  their  will. 

"  Is  that  wicked,  mediaeval  power — in  the  hands 
of  the  few,  but  still  strong  enough  to  overrule  the 
natural  tendencies  of  peoples  towards  peace  and 
friendship  and  to  turn  their  likings  into  hatreds — ■ 
is  it  going  to  continue  when  this  war  is  over  ?  Who 
can  doubt,  if  it  were  possible  to  take  a  plebiscite 
of  all  the  nations  who  are  fighting  now  as  to 
whether  international  disputes  should  be  settled 
by  war  or  arbitration,  what  the  result  would  be  ? 
Is  the  desire  of  the  many  to  have  its  chance  when 
this  war  shall  be  ended,  or  shall  we  submit  our- 
selves again  to  be  dominated  by  the  desire  of  the 
few  ?  " — From   "  The  Daily  News,"  October  5,  19 14. 

"  At    one   spot    where   there   had   been   a  fierce 


APPENDIX  261 

hand-to-hand  fight  there  were  indications  that 
the  combatants  when  wounded  had  shared  their 
water-bottles.  Near  them  were  a  Briton  and  a 
Frenchman  whose  cold  hands  were  clasped  in 
death,  a  touching  symbol  of  the  unity  of  the  two 
nations  in  this  terrible  conflict."— Frow  "  The 
Sheffield  Telegraph,"  November  14,  19 14. 


Reconciliation  in  Death. 

Letter  written    by  a  French  cavalry  officer  as  he  lay 
wounded  and  dying  in  Flanders. 

"There  are  two  other  men  lying  near  me,  and 
I  do  not  think  there  is  much  hope  for  them  either. 
One  is  an  officer  of  a  Scottish  regiment,  and  the 
other  a  private  in  the  Uhlans.  They  were  struck 
down  after  me,  and  when  I  came  to  myself  I  found 
them  bending  over  me  rendering  first  aid. 

"The  Britisher  was  pouring  water  down  my 
throat  from  his  flask,  while  the  German  was 
endeavouring  to  staunch  my  wound  with  an  anti- 
septic preparation  served  out  to  them  by  their 
medical  corps.  The  Highlander  had  one  of  his 
legs  shattered,  and  the  German  had  several  pieces 
of  shrapnel  buried  in  his  side. 

"  In  spite  of  their  own  sufferings  they  were  trying 
to  help  me,  and  when  I  was  fully  conscious  again 
the  German  gave  us  a  morphia  injection  and  took 
one  himself.     His  medical  corps  had  also  provided 


262        THE   HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

him  with  the  injection  and  the  needle,  together  with 
printed  instructions  for  its  use. 

"  After  the  injection,  feeling  wonderfully  at  ease, 
we  spoke  of  the  lives  we  had  lived  before  the  war. 
We  all  spoke  English,  and  we  talked  of  the  women 
we  had  left  at  home.  Both  the  German  and  the 
Britisher  had  only  been  married  a  year. 

"  I  wondered,  and  I  suppose  the  others  did,  why 
we  had  fought  each  other  at  all.  I  looked  at  the 
Highlander,  who  was  falling  to  sleep  exhausted, 
and  in  spite  of  his  drawn  face  and  mud-stained 
uniform  he  looked  the  embodiment  of  freedom. 
Then  I  thought  of  the  tricolor  of  France,  and  all 
that  France  had  done  for  liberty.  Then  I  watched 
the  German,  who  had  ceased  to  speak.  He  had 
taken  a  prayer-book  from  his  knapsack,  and  was 
trying  to  read  a  service  for  soldiers  wounded  in 
battle." 

The  letter  ends  with  a  reference  to  the  failing 
light  and  the  roar  of  the  guns.  It  was  found  at 
the  dead  officer's  side  by  a  Red  Cross  file,  and 
was  forwarded  to  his  fiancee. — From  "  The  Daily 
Citizen,"  December  21,  1914. 


Christmas,  1914. 

Letters  from  the  Front  {from  the  Daily  Press). 

"  Last   night  (Christmas    Eve)  was  the  weirdest 
stunt  I  have  ever  seen.     All  day  the  Germans  had 


APPENDIX  263 

been  sniping  industriously,  with  some  success,  but 
after  sunset  they  started  singing,  and  we  repHed 
with  carols.  Then  they  shouted,  '  Happy  Christ- 
mas ! '  to  us,  and  some  of  us  replied  in  German. 
It  was  a  topping  moonlight  night,  and  we  carried 
on  long  conversations,  and  kept  singing  to  each 
other  and  cheering.  Later  they  asked  us  to  send 
one  man  out  to  the  middle,  between  the  trenches, 
with  a  cake,  and  they  would  give  us  a  bottle  of 
wine. 

"  Hunt  went  out,  and  five  of  them  came  out  and 
gave  him  the  wine,  cigarettes,  and  cigars.  After 
that  you  could  hear  them  for  a  long  time  calling 
from  half-way,  '  Engleeshman,  kom  hier.'  So  one 
or  two  more  of  our  chaps  went  out  and  exchanged 
cigarettes,  etc.,  and  they  all  seemed  decent  fellows." 


* 


"  We  had  quite  a  sing-song  last  night  (Christmas 
Eve),"  says  one  writer.  "  The  Germans  gave  a  song, 
and  then  our  chaps  gave  them  one  in  return.  A 
German  that  could  speak  English,  and  some  others, 
came  right  up  to  our  trenches,  and  we  gave  them 
cigarettes  and  papers  to  read,  as  they  never  get  any 
news,  and  then  we  let  them  walk  back  to  their  own 
trenches.  Then  our  chaps  went  over  to  their 
trenches,  and  they  let  them  come  back  all  right. 
About  five  o'clock  on  Christmas  Eve  one  of  them 
shouted  across  and  told  us  that  if  we  did  not  fire  on 
them  they  would  not  open  fire  on  us,  and  so  the 


264        THE   HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

officers  agreed.  About  twenty  of  them  came  up  all 
at  once  and  started  chatting  away  to  our  chaps  like 
old  chums,  and  neither  side  attempted  to  shoot." 


* 


"  I  suppose  I  have  experienced  about  the  most 
extraordinary  Christmas  one  could  conceive.  About 
seven  o'clock  on  Christmas  Eve  the  Saxons,  who 
are  entrenched  about  seventy  yards  from  our 
trenches,  began  singing.  They  had  a  band  playing, 
and  our  chaps  cheered  and  shouted  to  them.  After 
some  time  they  stood  on  the  top  of  their  trenches, 
and  we  did  likewise.  We  mutually  agreed  to  cease 
fire,  and  all  night  we  sang  and  shouted  to  each 
other.  To  cap  everything,  their  band  played  '  God 
save  the  King.' 

"  When  daylight  came  two  of  our  fellows,  at  the 
invitation  of  the  enemy,  left  the  trenches,  met  half- 
way, and  drank  together.  That  completed  it.  They 
said  they  would  not  fire  if  we  did  not  ;  so  after  that 
we  strolled  about  talking  to  each  other." 


"On  Christmas  morning  it  was  very  foggy,  so 
we  had  a  short  run  on  the  top  of  the  trenches  to 
get  warm.  When  the  fog  lifted  we,  as  well  as  the 
Germans,  were  exposed.  No  firing  occurred,  and 
the  Germans  began  to  wave  umbrellas  and  rifles, 
and  we  answered.  They  sang  and  we  sang.  When 
we   met   we   found    they   were   fairly   old    fellows. 


APPENDIX  265 

They  gave  us  sausages,  cigars,  sweets,  and  perkin. 
We  mixed  together,  played  mouth-organs,  and  took 
part  in  dances.  My  word  !  the  Germans  can't  half 
sing  part-songs.  We  exchanged  addresses  and 
souvenirs,  and  when  the  time  came  we  shook  hands 
and  saluted  each  other,  returning  to  our  trenches." 

*  m  *  ^  * 

"  On  Christmas  morning  one  of  the  Germans 
came  out  of  a  trench  and  held  up  his  hands.  Then 
lots  of  us  did  the  same,  and  we  met  half-way,  and 
for  the  rest  of  the  day  we  fraternized,  exchanging 
cigars,  cigarettes,  and  souvenirs.  The  Germans 
also  gave  us  sausages,  and  we  gave  them  some  of 
our  food.  The  Scotsmen  then  started  the  bagpipes, 
and  we  had  a  rare  old  jollification,  which  included 
football,  in  which  the  Germans  took  part.  The 
Germans  said  they  were  tired  of  the  war,  and 
wished  it  was  over.  Next  day  we  got  an  order 
that  all  communication  and  friendly  intercourse 
must  cease." 

m  *  *  *  % 

"  I  went  up  into  the  trenches  on  Christmas  night. 
One  wouldn't  have  thought  there  was  a  war  going 
on.  All  day  our  soldiers  and  the  Germans  were 
talking  and  singing  half-way  between  the  opposing 
trenches.  The  space  was  filled  with  English  and 
Germans  handing  one  another  cigars.  At  night  we 
sang  carols." 


266        THE   HEALING   OF   NATIONS 

Extract   from   a  Letter    published    by    the 
'' Berliner  Tageblatt"  OF  December  24,  1914. 

The  author  of  the  letter  is  Baron  Marschall  von 
Bieberstein,  a  captain  of  the  reserves  and  Prussian 
"  Landrat,"  obviously  a  kinsman  of  the  late 
diplomatist  and  Ambassador  in  London.  He 
wrote  on  October  18  from  the  trenches.  He 
said : — 

"Whoever  fights  in  this  war  in  the  front  ranks, 
whoever  realizes  all  the  misery  and  unspeakable 
wretchedness  caused  by  a  modern  war  .  .  .  will 
unavoidably  arrive  at  the  conviction,  if  he  had 
not  acquired  it  earlier,  that  mankind  must  find  a 
way  of  overcoming  war.  It  is  untrue  that  eternal 
peace  is  a  dream,  and  not  even  a  beautiful  one. 
A  time  will  and  must  arrive  which  will  no  longer 
know  war,  and  this  time  will  mark  a  gigantic 
progress  in  comparison  with  our  own.  Just  as 
human  morality  has  overcome  the  war  of  all  against 
all ;  just  as  the  individual  had  to  accustom  himself 
to  seek  redress  of  his  grievances  at  the  hands  of 
the  State  after  blood  feuds  and  duels  had  been 
banished  by  civil  peace,  so  in  their  development 
will  the  nations  discover  ways  and  means  to  settle 
budding  conflicts  not  by  means  of  wars,  but  in 
some  other  regulated  fashion,  irrespective  of  what 
each  of  us  individually  may  think." 

Unfortunately,  the  writer  of  this  thoughtful  letter 
fell  on  the  battlefield. 

THE   END 


•Cbc  Oresbam  f>icB8 

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and  terms  of  settlement  have  been  arranged.  Schemes  for  agreed 
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Arbitration  or  Conciliation,  for  the  establishment  of  a  "  League 
of  Peace,"  or  a  Council  of  Nations  with  legislative  and  executive 
powers,  are  brought  under  consideration.  Mr.  Hobson  argues  that 
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form  of  real  international  government  with  adequate  powers  to 
deal  with  new  pohtical  and  economic  situations  before  they  reach 
the  danger-point  is  necessary.  Relations  must  be  between  Peoples 
not  between  "Powers,"  and  publicity  and  representative  control 
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fundamental  questions  which  underlie  the  settlement  of  the  war — 
International  Agreement  or  partnership  as  opposed  to  the  "balance 
of  power"  policy,  the  principle  of  nationality,  the  questions  of  equal 
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publicity  and  democratic  mfluence  in  foreign  policy.  It  deals  also  with 
even  deeper  problems  which  cannot  be  left  out  of  sight  at  a  time  like  the 
present — the  relation  of  war,  for  instance,  to  self-government,  to  the 
interests  of  women,  and  to  civilization  itself.  It  looks  to  the  future 
rather  than  to  the  past.  It  deals  with  problems  that  must  and  will  be 
discussed,  not  only  during  the  continuance  of  the  war,  but  during  the 
peace  negotiations  and  for  many  months,  if  not  for  many  years,  after  a 
settlement  has  been  reached.  It  is,  in  fact,  an  examination  of  the 
problems  which  it  is  indispensable  to  understand  if  we  are  to  be  enabled 
to  advocate  or  to  criticize  any  scheme  of  international  reconstruction,  and 
to  lay  the  foundation  of  a  permanent  peace.  The  names  of  the  writers  are 
a  guarantee  both  that  the  treatment  will  be  thorough,  and  that  the 
various  subjects  will  be  presented  with  vividness  and  lucidity. 

Frederick    the    Great   and 
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Prussia  to  withstand  successfully  for  seven  years  the  vast  armies 
united  against  her  of  Russia,  France,  Austria,  Saxony,  and  Sweden. 

The  translation  for  the  first  time  into  English  of  Frederick's  own 
account  of  this  Seven  Years  War,  in  which  he  tells  us  "  the  whole 
world  is  united  against  me,"  reveals  in  his  own  words  that  Prussian 
militarism  caused  this  former  world-war  which  bears  such  striking 
resemblance  to  that  of  our  own  times. 

LONDON  :  GEORGE   ALLEN  &  UNWIN   LIMITED. 


The  Future  of  Democracy 

By    H.    M.    HYNDMAN 

Crown  ?ivo.  zs.  (>d.  net. 

This  book  is  a  collection  of  essays  upon  the  great  social  and  political 
forces  of  our  time  :  the  causes  which  brought  the  present  War  and  those 
which  are  working  to  remodel  our  Society  when  Peace  has  been  made. 
The  volume  contains  not  only  the  impressions  of  recent  events  but  the 
conclusions  drawn  from  the  experience  of  fifty  years.  The  inevitable 
development  from  the  present  anarchical  period  of  transition  to  an 
organized  democratic  collectivism  is  clearly  indicated. 

The  author  has  seen  many  changes  in  Europe,  and  is  able,  from  the 
fullness  of  his  knowledge,  to  forecast  the  probable  course  of  events  and  to 
drive  home  his  warnings  of  long  ago  which  are  already  being  largely 
justified. 


A  Short  History  of  EngHsh 
Rural  Life 

(From  the  Saxon  Invasion  to  the  Present  Day) 

By  MONTAGUE  FORDHAM,  M.A.  (Cantab). 

Large  Crown  Zvo.  zs.  6d.  net. 

Most  of  us  know  something  of  the  English  manor,  and  many  of  us  have 
views  on  the  subject  of  "  Enclosures,"  but  rural  history,  as  a  whole,  has 
been  an  undiscovered  country  to  all  save  a  few  distinguished  authorities. 
There  will  be  no  excuse  in  the  future  for  this  ignorance,  for  Mr.  Montague 
Fordham  has  gathered  together  the  result  of  the  investigations  of  many 
profound  students  of  special  periods  of  English  rural  life,  and  has  created 
thereout  his  "  Short  History  of  English  Rural  Life."  Mr.  Montague 
Fordham  belongs  to  a  family  that  has  taken  a  leading  part  amongst  the 
squires  and  farmers  of  East  Anglia  for  many  centuries  ;  it  is,  therefore, 
not  surprising  to  find  that  he  has  a  special  knowledge  of  the  outlook  of 
these  classes.  He  has  further  made  a  very  careful  study  of  the  English 
labourer  and  of  the  class  of  small  men  who  lie  between  farmer  and 
labourer.  This  intimate  knowledge  of  rural  human  nature  has  given  a 
special  character  to  his  book.  But  it  is  not  only  a  book  written  by  a 
countryman  for  people  interested  in  English  country  life,  but  a  handbook 
for  students,  well  schemed,  and  full  of  valuable  information. 

LONDON:   GEORGE   ALLEN   AND   UNVVIN   LIMITED 


SECOND  EDITION  REVISED  AND  LARGELY  REWRITTEN 

The  Diplomatic  History 
of  the  War 

Edited  by  M.  P.  PRICE,  M.A. 

Medium  Svo.  ys.  6d.  net. 

Contains  the  English,  French,  Russian,  Belgian,  Austrian,  and 
German  Official  Papers,  besides  much  other  matter, 
"  This  work  may  fairly  claim  to  be  the  most  complete  historical 
account  yet  published  of  the  events  leading  up  to  the  War  .  .  . 
will  be  an  inestimable  treasure." — Standard.  "An  invaluable 

reference  book," — Globe.  "  Mr,  Price  has  rendered  a  great 

service." — Truth. 

Austraha  v.  Germany 

By   F.   S.    BURNELL 

Crown  %vo.  Illustrated  with  Photographs.  y.  6d.  net. 

The  capture  of  German  New  Guinea  by  the  Australian  Squadron 
and  the  first  Australian  Expeditionary  Force  is  a  notable  landmark 
in  Australian  history. 

Australians  had  already  fought  side  by  side  with  their  British 
comrades  in  the  Sudan,  in  China  during  the  Boxer  disturbances, 
and  in  the  South  African  War,  but  in  all  these  cases  they  were  part 
of  a  large  force  under  the  direct  orders  of  British  commanders. 
Now  for  the  first  time  Australia  was  given  work  to  do  with  her  own 
men  under  her  own  officers  and  helped  by  her  own  Squadron. 

The  Author  accompanied  the  Expedition  as  correspondent  to  the 
Sydney  Herald. 

To  All  the  World 

(except  GERMANY) 
By   ARTHUR   E.   STILWELL 

Author  of  "  Confidence  or  National  Suicide  ?  "  "  Universal  Peace,"  etc.,  etc. 
Crown  8vo,  Cloth.  p.  6d.  net. 

In  this  book  Mr.  Stilwell,  who  is  an  American  financier  of 
renown,  devotes  himself  to  a  consideration,  in  all  its  aspects,  of  the 
terrible  crisis  through  which  the  world  is  now  passing. 

It  is  an  unusual  book,  coming  from  a  citizen  of  a  neutral  country  ; 
but  it  is  honest,  courageous,  and  trenchant.  It  is  written  simply 
and  without  rancour,  and  is,  in  effect,  an  appeal  to  the  civilized 
peoples  of  the  world  to  respect  their  faith  and  abolish  the  war-idea. 

LONDON  :    GEORGE  ALLEN  &   UNWIN   LIMITED 


3 


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